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Both of your comments raise a good point, which is that many poor people may often be able to qualify for an increased amount of public assistance in higher tax states like New York and California.
But the increased costs of living in those states often eats poorer people alive, sometimes/often to the point that poorer people living in states like NY and CA may often be motivated to move to lower-cost states in the Southeast (including Georgia, etc.), particularly if they may aspire to be upwardly mobile and want to have at least a decent shot at at least some semblance of a middle-class lifestyle.
markjames68 makes an excellent point that many of the people leaving higher-tax/higher-cost states like New York and California generally may be wealthier and portable.
But (including because of Atlanta’s status as an increasingly high-profile ‘Mecca’ for African-Americans), Georgia has been attracting large numbers of poorer/transient transplants (of all colors, ranging from homeless and home/food-insecure income levels to working poor and lower-middle class) from both California and (ESPECIALLY from) New York for decades.
While there has been a smaller but still noticeably sizable pipeline of black transplants of all income levels moving from California to Georgia for decades, there has been what seems to be a particularly large pipeline of people of all income levels (including black transplants) moving from New York to Georgia since the end of World War II, with black New York/New Jersey residents moving to Georgia in increasingly larger numbers since the Civil Rights Movement began in the late 1950’s.
Just the housing costs alone has motivated many poorer New Yorkers and Californians to move to a lower-cost state like Georgia.
Many poorer New Yorkers and Californians (including many black New Yorkers and Californians whom regard metro as a ‘black Mecca’) may be motivated to move to a lower-cost state like Georgia because of personal desires to start a business that they might think will have a better chance of surviving and succeeding in lower-cost GA than higher-cost states like NY and GA.
Many poorer black New Yorkers and Californians might have also often been motivated to move to Georgia in the past because of the very high crime rates in those areas during the era roughly between 1970 and 1995.
I know someone who moved from NYC years ago to Atl and agter 10 years of strggling moved back to NYC still having little income but has stable housing since he left Atlanta. Same type of low paying job but it was easier for him to get assistance for housing.
Again taxes higher but crime rate is much lower than Atlanta,
Lower income people can do better in GA but poor do not
Thats nothing new, Thats part of the problem,From what i know,no where in teh western deveped world is schoooling is tied to property taxes. The South is the main place that would benefit from more federal guidelines in standards.
Are u reallly suggesting because Cali has some poor performing schools,that somehow is the equailent of just how even the nest schools in Georgia still dont rank as high overall when matched up with those in Cali. Not to ment how bad or average at best schools are outside metro Atlanta
You might find this interesting. Note that without Prop 13 many middle class people wouldn’t likely be able to afford staying in their homes.
Cuomo also finally took a step in NY back in 2011 to cap property tax increases at 2% per year. Before that I’d have years where my taxes increased 5%, 6%, 7% - far above the rate of inflation.
I’m very happy with the schools my kids are in here in Georgia. Zero complaints.
I know someone who moved from NYC years ago to Atl and agter 10 years of strggling moved back to NYC still having little income but has stable housing since he left Atlanta. Same type of low paying job but it was easier for him to get assistance for housing.
Again taxes higher but crime rate is much lower than Atlanta,
Lower income people can do better in GA but poor do not
That is a good point that people with lower incomes often can do better in Georgia, but that poor people often may not.
I also know of some people (particularly people without cars) who have moved back to transit-heavy Northern cities like New York and Chicago because of the difficulty they might have faced in attempting to live car-free in metro Atlanta after living car-free lifestyles in transit-heavy Northern cities.
But I also know poor people who have moved to Georgia and were willing to struggle in Georgia (metro Atlanta) because of the greater lack of opportunities that they may have experienced in more hardscrabble Northern/Midwestern areas like Detroit (and much of urban Michigan), Buffalo, Gary (and Northwest Indiana), inner-urban St. Louis, etc.
You also raised a good point about the significantly lower crime rates that an area like New York has experienced over the last 2 decades or so.
But the crime rates were not always so low in New York (though crimes did appear to be back on the rise in New York as might have been the case in many urban areas in 2020).
From about the mid-1960’s through the mid-1990’s, many more populous parts of the country (including New York, Chicagoland, urban California, etc.) experienced very high and escalating crime rates that helped to generate much of the black migration to Georgia (metro Atlanta) from major urban areas in the Northeast, the Midwest and in California that occurred before the year 2000.
Keep in mind that this large amount of black migration to Georgia from the aforementioned urban areas in other parts of the country was occurring during an era (roughly between about 1970-1995) when the City of Atlanta proper was dealing with its own sky-high crime rates when the city averaged over 200 homicides per year between about 1971 and 1994.
But crime might have often been so high in urban areas in the aforementioned other parts of the country (California alone peaked out at about 4,000+ homicides in 1993, while New York state peaked out at about roughly somewhere around 3,000 homicides in the same year) that Atlanta’s high crime rates of that era might have seemed much more tolerable by comparison to the very high crime rates of the era in areas like NY/NJ, Philly, DC, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Southern California and the Bay Area.
For what it’s worth, the real estate market is hot in the Atlanta suburbs and through most of Georgia right now. A lot of people selling in the Northeast and relocating here as they can work remotely and get a better QOL with lower COL.
For what it’s worth, the real estate market is hot in the Atlanta suburbs and through most of Georgia right now. A lot of people selling in the Northeast and relocating here as they can work remotely and get a better QOL with lower COL.
We have had several neighbors list and sell their house in a matter of hours/days even during the holiday season. Realtor friend of my wife expects market to be very hot in Atlanta at least through April.
Yeah the same is happening here, homes selling in less than 2 days avg, contracts are flying in a matter of hours and selling as high as $30k over listing price. Gone will be the days of the home bargains in the south if this trend continues, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. It's worse here because our real estate was already pricey as is, esp with Property Tax.
In Atlanta its still possible to pick up fixer-uppers that don't need complete teardown / restores, fix them, and flip them for a marginal profit though. Here though its much harder.
Cuomo also finally took a step in NY back in 2011 to cap property tax increases at 2% per year. Before that I’d have years where my taxes increased 5%, 6%, 7% - far above the rate of inflation.
I’m very happy with the schools my kids are in here in Georgia. Zero complaints.
Prop 13 was a good idea.Its not really taxes people have a problem with per se. Its how taxes are spent and even how they are collected. As in the tax burden on the individual.
Yes I know this about how the school system has declined but thats even more embarrassing that overall they still rank far higher than any state in the South accept maybe Virginia and Maryland.
Im sure you were able financially to choose where you wanted to live in a district with great schools. Those are with great schools are so expensive and even lower income students are fewer because their parents xan afford even to rent.
I live in an areas where schools were decent at one time to just acceptable to just ok at best. The property values of the house my parents owned when i was in high school but now mine has reflected in the quality of the schools. The property value of my house is the highest it has ever been.
Prop 13 was a good idea.Its not really taxes people have a problem with per se. Its how taxes are spent and even how they are collected. As in the tax burden on the individual.
Yes I know this about how the school system has declined but thats even more embarrassing that overall they still rank far higher than any state in the South accept maybe Virginia and Maryland.
Im sure you were able financially to choose where you wanted to live in a district with great schools. Those are with great schools are so expensive and even lower income students are fewer because their parents xan afford even to rent.
I live in an areas where schools were decent at one time to just acceptable to just ok at best. The property values of the house my parents owned when i was in high school but now mine has reflected in the quality of the schools. The property value of my house is the highest it has ever been.
I initially also thought it was a good idea, but I read into the actual affect more deeply which had a very unintended consequence — I don’t know about NY as I’m unsure how much they can feasibly build in that region given it’s a build upward and not outward city. I know that in California though what ended up happening is that the cap in property tax capped the amount of income cities could collect from residents. Which sounds good right? Well what ended up happening is those municipalities ended up zoning less residential nodes because they have to make land-use efficient for tax collection as well. they would be getting more tax from commercial, office, industrial zones so they zoned less residential and more commercial space. This actually had an inverted affect. Less residential nodes = Less available homes per capita and demand which ultimately lead to housing shortages. What happens when demand is high and inventory is low? Home values increase. This isn’t the ‘only’ reason for California’s high CoL in terms of residential housing but it is one of them.
I initially also thought it was a good idea, but I read into the actual affect more deeply which had a very unintended consequence — I don’t know about NY as I’m unsure how much they can feasibly build in that region given it’s a build upward and not outward city. I know that in California though what ended up happening is that the cap in property tax capped the amount of income cities could collect from residents. Which sounds good right? Well what ended up happening is those municipalities ended up zoning less residential nodes because they have to make land-use efficient for tax collection as well. they would be getting more tax from commercial, office, industrial zones so they zoned less residential and more commercial space. This actually had an inverted affect. Less residential nodes = Less available homes per capita and demand which ultimately lead to housing shortages. What happens when demand is high and inventory is low? Home values increase. This isn’t the ‘only’ reason for California’s high CoL in terms of residential housing but it is one of them.
And then it also inhibits mobility because once you’re locked in with Prop 13 if you sell and move you’ll be paying the real rate for property tax in your new home.
These posts are no longer about Gov Brian Kemp and not even about Georgia. Back on topic, please.
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