For the fourth year in a row, San Diego County saw thousands more people leave for other destinations than relocate here, cementing its position as one of the nation's top 10 losers in that category, new census figures reveal.
SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune
An Atlas Transfer & Storage worker loaded Lois Howard's belongings yesterday for her move from a mobile home in Santee to a home in the more affordable Desert Hot Springs.
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That ranking is all the more stunning given that two of the counties ahead of San Diego – Orleans Parish and St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana – were devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, which forced hundreds of thousands to relocate, many of them permanently.
Between July 2005 and July 2006, 42,034 more people moved from San Diego County to other places in the country than came here from elsewhere in the nation, according to county population estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. That put San Diego eighth in the nation among counties with high domestic out-migration.
Since 2000, the net number of people who moved out of the county is even more staggering – 119,636, a figure greater than Carlsbad's population.
As San Diego County increasingly becomes a place people move away from than gravitate to, businesses will find it more difficult to remain competitive and attract high-caliber employees, say corporate recruiters and economists. And as commutes lengthen for those who work in the county but choose to move farther away from their jobs, quality of life could diminish.
“The higher up the management scale you are, the less you'll want to have a long commute,” said Marney Cox, an economist with the San Diego Association of Governments. “You'll ask your boss for a higher salary as compensation, which adds to the cost of doing business. Other people who don't have that bargaining power will have to put up with the commute and live farther away.
“Businesses may have to ratchet down to find candidates, and that makes us a little less competitive.”
Other California counties joining San Diego County in the top 10 counties with the greatest migration losses are Orange and Los Angeles.
The continued movement from San Diego during the last few years parallels a prolonged run-up in housing prices and lagging incomes that have propelled large numbers of aspiring homeowners to seek less expensive areas where they can afford to buy a home.
That explains why Riverside County, where the median home price last month was $70,000 less than in San Diego County, had the third-largest population gain last year among all counties, the census estimates show.
One prominent demographer observed that San Diego County had joined the ranks of other large metropolitan areas that have seen a growing number of households leave.
“The fact that it's the eighth-biggest loser for domestic migrants is a milestone,” said demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution, a research group based in Washington, D.C. “If you asked someone about that in the '90s, they'd be amused. San Diego is becoming Los Angeles in some respects. L.A. has had this profile for almost 20 years.”
SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune
Lois Howard played her piano while Atlas Transfer & Storage worker Tyler Capshaw prepared a dining-room table for Howard's move from Santee to Desert Hot Springs. "It's just so expensive to live here," Howard said.
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With thousands of people moving out, San Diego County grew by a mere 4,800 last year, bringing its estimated population to 2,941,454.
Immigrants and births are now the sole contributors to the region's population growth. That's a departure from the late 1980s when the county's population surged 80,000 a year.
San Diego's loss of people to other areas of the state and country is a trend seen along coastal California, where rising housing prices have fueled the movement to inland areas where real estate is much cheaper.
Riverside County, for example, saw a net gain of 58,000 newcomers, which contributed to a one-year population increase of more than 81,000.
Its continued allure as an affordable place to live for buyers priced out of San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties has contributed mightily to Southern California's traffic-clogged freeways, most notably Interstate 15.
In the 257-home Capistrano subdivision in Winchester, located in southwest Riverside County, roughly 70 percent of the buyers are from San Diego County, said sales agent Angela Douglas of Barratt American.
“What they're saying is they can't afford a home in San Diego County because they're priced out. They can't even qualify,” said Douglas, noting that prices for a 2,000-square-foot home in the Capistrano development start at $436,000. “They've given up the shorter commute but they have a better lifestyle and have achieved the dream of owning a home.”
While western Riverside County has been trying to transform what have largely been bedroom communities into employment centers, that effort will take time, said Rick Bishop, executive director of the Western Riverside Council of Governments. At the rate the area is growing, western Riverside County, which includes Temecula and Murrieta, can expect 900,000 more people by 2035, he said.
“To be fair, Temecula and Murrieta are starting to see higher-end jobs and office development but not enough to create a localized high-end work force, so until then, we'll continue to see those long commutes,” Bishop said.
San Diego County demographers have adjusted their forecasts to take into account the heavy migration out of the area to Riverside County. By 2030, there will be 93,400 more people who live in Riverside County and other areas outside the region but who still will work in San Diego, according to demographer Ed Shafer of the San Diego Association of Governments.
“Right now, we're looking at a slowdown but we're not going to always be this slow over the next 23 years because our economics are still good and we don't see a giant recession coming,” Shafer said. “There's a problem now in the housing market and to some extent this problem will wash out and housing might become more affordable in the region.”
Lois Howard, who's moving in a few days from her spacious mobile home in Santee to a new house she is buying in Desert Hot Springs, said she searched in vain for an affordable place to buy in San Diego County after deciding to downsize.
“I kept going further out and out from San Diego to see where I could own the land and afford something on that land, and this is so close to Palm Springs,” said Howard, 75, who is purchasing a two-year-old, 1,100-square-foot home with a two-car garage for $185,000. “I have friends who are in similar situations and want to follow suit and do this.
“We just had a friend who moved to Texas because it's less expensive. It's just so expensive to live here.”
It's clear from recent census surveys that a lack of affordable housing is increasingly driving the migration out of California counties, said Hans Johnson, a research fellow with the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California.
“We're also starting to see that (the shortage of affordable housing) is important not just for lower income households but also for college graduates,” he said. “Some people will be quite pleased and feel that controlling population growth is a good thing and that there may be less congestion and fewer environmental effects, but you have to remember that it really means San Diego is pushing growth to other places.”
Jobs recruiter David Musgrove has seen firsthand the impact of San Diego's costly housing.
“Very often, candidates come in and look at the cost of living in San Diego and say, 'Wow, that's a lot more than I'm paying,' and it derails the deal,” said Musgrove, co-founder of International Search Partners. He specializes in recruiting mid-to upper-level managers for multimedia software and e-commerce firms.
“The companies that it affects most are small or labor-intensive businesses. Those companies have to raise their salaries, so the cost of business goes up.”
Demographers with the California Department of Finance point out that the Census Bureau's migration numbers for San Diego County vary sharply from their own, which show far fewer people leaving the area over the past six years.
Where the Census Bureau shows nearly 120,000 more people leaving the county than moving in since 2000, the state reports a positive flow into the county of nearly 9,300.
That is because the bureau relies almost exclusively on federal tax returns, which can exclude very low income people and students who may not file returns, said state demographer Linda Gage. California's Demographic Research unit uses IRS data and driver's license address changes to track population change, she said.
However, there's no reason to question the huge population shifts experienced by Gulf Coast communities impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Orleans Parish lost roughly half its population in the last year while St. Bernard Parish suffered a 76 percent population decline.
Katrina had the reverse effect on Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, which attracted many of the Katrina evacuees. It added more than 123,000 people from 2005 to 2006, compared to a population gain of more than 67,000 a year earlier.
Union-Tribune staff writer Dean Calbreath contributed to this report.
Lori Weisberg: (619) 293-2251; lori.weisberg@uniontrib.com