Realistically red state depopulation is not happening by next census. There has already been substantial net migration towards red states since the last one and it would be quite a tall order to go back to the 2020 status quo in time let alone to substantially reverse those migrations. And the regressive policies of red states aren’t unknown; most people making those moves just consider them less as important than the housing affordability angle as evidenced by them still making those moves even as many are getting more extreme in policies. In theory it would be easy to game the electoral college if people moved in organized ideological ways but most people are moving for mundane kitchen table reasons rather than for their rights and ideology.

I’m not saying it’s unsolvable, just that it’s not solved right now which is why there is currently a stream of people going to red states that are building. That needs to be fixed to stop before that stream can be turned around. I want that solved so more people can afford to live in states that aren’t psycho! Red states have indeed not solved NIMBYism either but their advantage is that building single family homes in sprawl around major cities is easier under current zoning regimes than building up; they can still build that low hanging fruit since they historically were less desired places to live and had lower populations, whereas the best spots for that easy to build sprawl have generally already been built a while back in blue states.

Here’s the chart of vacancy rates. I considered new housing permits more relevant in the last post because people are putting money on the line that the house they’re building is worth it either for themselves to live in or to sell or rent to someone else, so generally that’s tied in with proximity to a local economic center. If considering vacant houses the problem is that say if the local mill shut down and the place has no jobs then maybe they have a ton of vacant homes after much of that community left but no one wants to live there since you can’t make a living. So ex. West Virginia has a huge number of vacant homes but they no longer have the economic centers that made most of them viable so people are generally still moving out rather than in. Whereas say the Carolinas have well developed economies in the areas where they are building & and are building at a huge clip so the large number of vacancies from new construction are desirable and many people are flooding in to buy those relatively cheap homes near decent jobs.

I agree that those laws can be changed and I would like that to happen. There is room for expansion still in blue states - not so much horizontally because generally any place that could be sprawled out within a long commute near a city with a decent economy has had that happen already. People also won’t move to houses built in the middle of nowhere where no jobs are available. But, there can be much more vertical, denser building. Even returning to historic densities would be a big help in buffing blue states politically (ex. Manhattan had a peak population of 2.3 million in 1910 but is now only 1.7 million.) But there is a big NIMBY problem to overcome before getting there since homeowners have big incentives to oppose new housing whatever the source, and those special interests have not disappeared just because the states are blue.

Below are two photos of internal migration by state and new housing permits per capita. Since housing is THE major cost in most people’s budgets there is a flow going towards where housing is cheapest. Some have actually coined the term “New Great Migration” as many African Americans are now coming to the South on net. This is buffing the political power of those states even while the politics are rather rancid.

After a spell of being a NEET I managed to wiggle my way into my old job despite being a fresh out of college grad … they were desperate to hire because they couldn’t hold onto people willing to be regularly on-call, occasionally flipping to nights and working twelves at random and extended times in the worst site of that industry in the worst state of the union, AND it was legally required so they had to have it. Each time they hired someone they had to not only spend usually two years training them while they were on intro engineer salary before they could become useful, but also spend a few tens of thousands of dollars on contractors to teach classes and the valuable time of qualified people as mentors. Then after the trainees got qualified it was like coin flip odds of them either staying for a couple years or instantly booking it and the whole investment wasted.

The bosses were constantly showering the qualified people remaining with promotions, raises and golden handcuffs and so on to placate people to please stay and not have them do more rounds of interviews, even when the people weren’t that good. Of course, that also meant it was a great way to develop the resume for an exit artificially early too.

Talked to a doctor there, there was a deal for foreign doctors to be stationed in undesired places like that in exchange for progress towards getting a green card. On finishing their time the department they joined could be on the verge of dissolving from the older people ditching so then BOOM program director by attrition rather early in their career. Which then looks great on their resume when sent to someone else so the cycle continues lol.

Tbh Biden did set himself up for trouble on gas prices specifically. He had that make Saudi Arabia a pariah initiative he was giving speeches on when he first got elected, it was going OK while the US held the cards… but after the Ukraine war started and the supply was reduced, gas prices became a giant glowing weak spot that the Saudis could vengefully mash just in time for mid-terms. Biden recognized the danger then and visited hat in hand to ask for forgiveness and more production, but it was too late after making very public positions and statements that the Saudis REALLY didn’t like at all so the trip didn’t amount to much other than embarassing news articles about him crawling back to the guy he had been calling a murderer.

Unfortunately most of our blue states have shot themselves in the foot by making it too difficult to privately build dense housing while also not using public resources to build densely in sufficient amounts either. Blue states were generally already nicer places to live so they filled up and sprawled out a while back after that it’s been harder to keep stapling on homes near cities with decent economies. Whereas most red states are a lot emptier and still have that room to sprawl out development near their economic engines… so that’s where the building happens and the people are drawn in by more affordable housing. Eventually red states will sprawl out too much and the low hanging fruit will be gone but for the time being they’re still building like crazy in places like South Carolina.

Population is growing and the household sizes have been shrinking so more homes are needed to house fewer people. But existing housing stocks decay and possibly become unusable if not cared for and constantly need to be replenished. If blue states want to grow their population they have to overcome interest groups and obstacles opposed to either making it easier to build housing or the government itself building housing in sufficient quantities.

Dang that was one of the three I was first introduced to as a kid. Teacher recommended using AskJeeves, Dogpile, or what she called her “personal favorite”, Google.

Not sure how Dogpile still exists