Jeff Jacoby reports that for the second year in a row, Massachusetts’ population has declined. Gee, why would people be leaving such a wonderful place as this? Housing is about the most expensive in the country, taxes are ridiculous, left-wing social re-engineering is well underway, nearly our entire political system is corrupt, and crime is rampant. For Catholics, our churches are emptying (and being sold off), heresy and heterodoxy is fairly well tolerated, and Voice of the Faithful types apparently have a stranglehold on our dioceses. Other than that what’s the problem?
During the 12 months ending July 1, 2005, the Bay State experienced a net loss of more than 8,600 residents, or 0.1 percent of its population. It was one of only three states to end the year with fewer people than it had at the start—New York and Rhode Island were the others—and the only one to do so for the second year running.
But that’s only 8,600 people, you say. That’s nothing for a state of several million residents. Sure, but when you subtract foreign immigrants from the equation—you know, all those people going to college here and working in our hospitals and all those companies in Cambridge—since 1990 the state has lost 213,000 residents. Even worse, a quarter of all residents would leave if they could.
What’s driving them out?
Technorati Tags: liberalism, Massachusetts, politics
“Someday I’ll be glad to call myself a Texan. “
You and me both. I was down there from 1991 to 1996.
I think coming back here was a serious misjudgement.
How can you be yeast if you won’t be mixed into the dough?
Or to be more Biblical, salt?
I lived in Boston from ‘88 to ‘03.
My friends, Boston natives & student transplants, mostly left in the late 90’s. The reason: people were married in their 30’s and went in search of a better housing deal. The natives went to Vermont or Maine. The transplants scattered throughout the country. The few that stayed were the ones that bought a house or condo in JP or Hyde Park or Roxbury before the market exploded, or they owned a business. And some of those cashed in a few years later and left.
We weren’t Christian church go-ers, we were Mass Democrats and liberals. So the political/religious climate was not a factor.
But when I left in ‘03 after returning to the Church in ‘01, the political / religious climate was a factor. Not the main one, but it helped.
-tc
Business taxes are absolutely horrible. Nobody talks about founding or establishing a business in Boston or Mass anymore. Even high-tech now will go somewhere else, rather than deal with the taxes and fees. Taxes and fees which are worse when you factor in the higher salaries and benefits you have to pay to get people to move there.
Plus, I know a number of people who moved into Boston and found their neighbors to be cold and not very friendly. It’s a very cliquish place. My brother in law the Doctor at Harvard and his wife my sister the PhD in medieval theology and former BC prof HATED Boston.
In many areas Boston business ethics are seen to be close to the ethics of Lousiana.
I love it here. Don’t ever plan to leave.
We used to have NH to escape to when one grew up politically and became sick of the socialist nanny state. It is turning more and more liberal. Maine and Vermont, forget about it. If you want social and political sanity, we’ll have to move south…and I don’t mean Conneticut or NY either!
It is a pretty area of the Country. I was blessed to be able to live there for a few years. My son was born in Concord and my sister and her family lived in Sudbury.
It was like a vacation to us. We went somewhere every weekend but when it was time to move on we were glad to go.
I am a native New Yorker, born in NYC and raised on Long Island. Now, I call Alabama my home and I wouldn’t trade all that I have found here for anything. My husband got to stay here while he worked for Draper Labs in Cambridge. When we flew up there for a party and I told someone we lived in Alabama, the room became quiet. Someone asked me if we had computers there. LOL, My next door neighbor is the regional director for Microsoft!
My sister says Boston is the hub of the Universe. I say she and I don’t live in the same universe.
Alabama, families and business can thrive here VERY WELL! It is a secret I only share with the very best!
God Bless,
Isabelle
I left a few months ago to return to my native TX. I miss some things about life there, but you can have the winter and the high housing costs. I do have to say there is a positive difference in people’s openness to faith here.
How can you be yeast if you won’t be mixed into the dough?
Or to be more Biblical, salt?
Couldn’t agreem more with csprague.
This is mission territory folks. If your trying to save souls, living here, you will be looked upon no differently that Isaac Jogues was by the Huron. And you will definitely be in the minority.
If you’re tired, you can return to the SHIRE, Mr. Baggins. My big family of 7 Hobbits is staying here on the front lines.
Just remember what Frodo saw when he looked into the mirror….
See you at the gates of Mordor…
Maybe we can get the St. James Society to redirect it activities. It not too far fetched that many future Missionaries for a “Boston Mission” may come from the fruit of third world missionary activity.
Very ironic times indeed.
http://www.socstjames.com/home.htm
As a Cape Coddah, I know many locals who have left the Cape for places such as Maine, Colorado, the Carolinas, and Florida. In Chatham, there are 300 homes for sale. In the town where I serve as a priest, there are the same number of homes on the market. People want to cash in their real estate and get the dodge out of town.
Heck! If I hadn’t been ordained a priest, I would have left Massachusetts already. But for my sins, God called me to be ordained for the Diocese of Fall River, which isn’t bad because I can be near the ocean and get my weekly allotment of sea air. Maybe enough Catholics will leave Massachsetts that I can be loaned to a coastal community in the Carolinas. Probably not.
“How can you be yeast if you won’t be mixed into the dough?
Or to be more Biblical, salt?”
Wrong analogy. Staying in Massachusetts is like staying in Sodom. And those that look back longingly are going to be turned into salt.
When God nukes Massachsuetts the way he nuked Sodom … maybe I’ll get a reprieve but this state is damned either way.
Pardon the insolence of your sevant, and strike me dead if I try your infinite patience, but, if I may as, if you can only find 5 good men in Massachusetts, then Lord, will you spare the Commenwealth?