We Hang By a Thread

Although we ourselves have been mercifully spared this time, Southern California is burning, and thousands have fled.

These events are in part the playing out of the ecosystems of this region, which are in the main fire-based. Some of the most common plants require fire to germinate. People have made it worse by settling in the midst of this ecosystem and then suppressing the naturally occurring periodic fires, which then become more devastating when they finally occur.

We also may be at the start of a secular drought cycle in the entire Southwest, the kind that may have erased cultures in the past. Or not.

Meanwhile, though General (Yes Ma'am) Sherman is long dead, Atlanta has blithely ignored the drying of the lake upon which its water supply depends, and has less than 3 months' supply and no backup. We have seen in New Orleans that our vaunted civilization is still vulnerable to the vagaries of nature. The builders of Babel were confounded in their pride. Why not us?

We have given in to gluttony, pride and greed, and have chosen to be ruled by mental and moral Pygmies ("You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie.") Why not a reckoning? Lord, have mercy.

American Exodus

A couple of decades ago they used to talk about blacks chasing Jews who chased Christians up and down the Atlantic seaboard. There's still a lot of chasing going on, but the participants are different.

Michael Barone, one of the few pundits who actually knows things, presents some statistics on internal and international migration in the U.S. Unfortunately the tables don't all format well, at least in Firefox, but that data are compelling nonetheless.

Counties that are gaining from internal migration are exurban counties, mostly in the South and Southwest. In the Southern California conurbation, it's the "Inland Empire" (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) that is gaining. Even Orange County, California, once a big net gainer, shows net domestic outmigration.

Big losers are the central cities all over the country. In short, the areas that tend to be liberal and Democrat are losing population and more Republican areas are gaining. This is consistent with Steve Sailer's data that show married breeders, who gravitate toward low house prices, tend to be more conservative than the non-breeders who can afford to live in the central cities.

Looking at metropolitan areas, here are the big losers with their losses:

New York, N.Y.-N.J.-Pa.	1,151,338
San Francisco, Calif.	506,241
Chicago, Ill.-Ind.-Wis.	342,664
Los Angeles, Calif.	291,180
Boston, Ma.-N.H.	223,017
Detroit, Mich.	146,170
San Diego, Calif.	97,536
Philadelphia, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md.	51,888

Here Barone adds the international in-migration figures to the big losers:

New York, N.Y.-N.J.-Pa.	1,151,338	865,533
San Francisco, Calif.	506,241	327,724
Chicago, Ill.-Ind.-Wis.	342,664	306,954
Los Angeles, Calif.	291,180	726,174
Boston, Ma.-N.H.	223,017	132,759
Detroit, Mich.	146,170	72,285
San Diego, Calif.	97,536	91,725
Philadelphia, Pa.-N.J.-Del.-Md.	51,888	75,799

Los Angeles and Philadelphia are unique in that international immigration offsets the internal out-migration.

Of the areas that gained from domestic in-migration, only Dallas and Houston show greater gains from international immigration.

In L.A., it's quite clear. Immigrants are pouring in, and the native-born are leaving. As they used to say in Garden Grove, California--will the last American to leave please turn out the lights?

If anyone thought about it, we're not headed to a future that most Americans would prefer.