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There was recently a thread on the California forum about how natives in the state feel about transplants.
Well, I thought I would start a thread, providing that hopefully everyone will be nice and civil of course.
It was concluded, which I absolutely believe is that California has been so diverse and transient throughout its entire history, that you simply do not get nearly the whole:
"transplants from California (or the east coast) ruin our solitude, bring riff raff, drive up cost of living with second homes, overcrowding"
rhetoric the way you do in other western states.
Now I lived in a small intermountain west town for grad school several years ago, and while I enjoyed my time, and met great people, and people never really had any issues with me, and liked me, I never felt completely comfortable just being myself. Because I always was self conscious about being a transplant. Because hearing that, I always felt like I had to prove myself that I was not one of those transplants. But truth is, while I highly respect, fascinated, and interested in learning from the cowboy and the hippie, I am definitely not one of those myself. In fact despite the fact that I camp, fish, etc, I also put more effort into grooming, style, etc. Not a full blown metrosexual, but more into appearance than the average guy, that I would stick out in Colorado or Oregon (and definitely any other red state), in a way I do not in California.
Yet I live for the geographic variety of geologic landforms, climate zones, and ecoregions. In California I can enjoy and learn about all the natural diversity, while feeling at home, because California has always had a dynamic and diverse population. In fact here in LA, everyone is amazed by the hiking and exploring I have done of the natural areas found within two hours of here. They learn from me about places right in their backyard. In Colorado and Wyoming, I was assume to be a newbie from the east who was presumed to be newbie who did not have the outdoor knowledge that they did.
Now, I am planning on staying in California for a while, however there very well may come a time, where the cost of living might make me move elsewhere.
In my opinion I would say generally speaking what is considered the Southwest is overall not like the intermountain west or the Pacific northwest in that regard. Phoenix (or Vegas, which I would value only because of proximity to Grand Canyon, Zion, Death Valley, etc.) and maybe possibly even Tuscon, El Paso, or Albequerque just don't seem to have the same level of "Californians/easterners changing everything for the worse, etc.
What do you think. Do you agree that the Southwest is a little less obsessed with "protecting their quality of life" as other western regions?
What do you think. Do you agree that the Southwest is a little less obsessed with "protecting their quality of life" as other western regions?
Well, yeah because there are simply a smaller number of Arizona or Nevada natives to begin with compared to the Pacific Northwest or even the Intermountain West (Utah and Colorado). You're talking about a population base that for the most part is transplant itself. In the case of Nevada, around 70-75% of people there have probably lived in California for some period of time. Keep in mind that as recent as 50 years ago, Nevada literally had less than 300,000 people. It makes current day Wyoming look like an overpopulated state.
Arizona natives complain about the same exact thing as the PNW natives when it comes to Californians, but there are simply less number of them to complain about how things were in the good ol' days as a percentage of the population. Compared to Nevada, Arizona was a large state 50 years ago with a whopping 1.3 million people. Compare that to Washington that had 2.8 million people and Oregon with nearly 1.8 million people.
I think its pretty stupid because at the end of the day, aren't we all Americans? It makes no sense to have all this hostility between one another over the place you so happened to have been born or lived in before you moved. None of us had any control over where we were born. And its not like most of the population of the states themselves are really that rooted either. Ask the average Arizona, Colorado, or Washington resident the tribe that used to live on the land where their city is today. They'd give you a long blank stare.
Oh, and just to let you know, California natives for the first time in its history are the majority of the population.
Now, its not a huge secret that most of that are kids of immigrants, both Asian and Hispanic, and those two groups are way less likely to move than Whites and Blacks. Hell, someone on the California forum claimed I was being "selfish" for living here because I'm of a non-European ancestry or non-African ancestry.
I think Western states as a whole are transplant friendly... and most the country for that matter.
Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado all have a ton of transplants and they become part of the community like anywhere else.
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