My trip to Texas was a lifetime highlight for me. Some thoughts:
1. I hadn’t flown since March. I passed through the following airports: Dulles, Dallas, Amarillo, Austin, and Charlotte. All of them were half-deserted, except for Charlotte, which was inexplicably packed. Even in Charlotte, however, the level of fear was low. Travelers lined up in pre-COVID fashion unless you made a point of distancing.
2. My trip took me on a horizontally-flipped-J route from Amarillo to San Antonio, then up to Austin. Everywhere I went was visibly less shut-down than northern Virginia. Horrified? Consider this: Given an area’s health stats, you should hope their level of caution to be low! Why? Because it reveals favorable trade-offs. While Texas is hardly winning the COVID race, the state shows that a package of (low caution with moderate COVID) is available. Great news in my book.
3. I spoke to live audiences of 70-80 people in Lubbock and San Angelo, in halls built to accommodate about 1000. Under university rules, audience members had to wear masks, but (unlike at GMU) the speaker may go commando. Efficient!
4. Palo Duro Canyon, the “Grand Canyon of Texas,” far exceeded my high expectations. Entry was tightly rationed due to COVID, leaving the park virtually deserted except on the most popular trail.
5. I knew that Texas was growing frenetically, but I was shocked by the speed of expansion in west Texas. When I previously visited Lubbock in 2013, there was a vast vacant lot from the Overton Hotel (across the street from Texas Tech) to the Walmart. Now there’s scarcely an undeveloped lot on this entire half-mile stretch.
6. The rest of west Texas seems full of residential, commercial, and industrial construction as well. You can drive for an hour at 90 miles per hour, then suddenly hit a small metropolis full of construction work.
7. Free-market economics is doing tolerably well at West Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Angelo State, and the University of Texas. It’s hardly dominant, but none of these schools have a typical academic monoculture as they would in the DC-Boston Corridor.
8. I saw near-zero traffic enforcement outside of populated areas, making life a lot more convenient for Texans proverbially stuck in the middle of nowhere.
9. Other than abandoned farm houses, I saw no slums or “bad areas of town” anywhere in Texas. All of the new construction looked solidly “middle-class” or better. Caveat: Austin has multiple tent cities for the homeless, though all the ones I witnessed were out of sight of normal residential areas. The largest tent cities were under Austin’s freeway bridges.
10. “Texas German Country” is only homeopathically German, but the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg is one of the finest war museums I’ve ever visited. Fans of “Deep Roots” theories understandably point to the fact that Japan’s pre-war strengths allowed them to rapidly recover from military defeat. But if Deep Roots matter so much, how did one of the most entrenched militocracies in history become one of the world’s most pacific democracies? Who seriously expects Japanese militarism to revive in the 21st century?
11. Circa 2008, a car service drove me from the Public Choice meetings in San Antonio to speak at South by Southwest in Austin. The seventy-five mile journey went through vast vacant stretches. When I retrod the same route last week, there was scarcely an undeveloped block. You can see wilderness from the highway, but are never out of sight of residential, commercial, or industrial properties – with additional construction well underway.
12. My dear friend Steve Kuhn sponsored a jaw-dropping meet-up at his mountain-view estate. Attendees went around the pool introducing ourselves to the group. Less than half of the guests were originally from Texas. Anyone who said they’d fled California or the Northeast got a spontaneous round of applause.
13. Last spring, Steve Kuhn planned to launch a pro-immigration music festival in Austin. When COVID ruined his idea, he decided to build a permanent pro-immigration venue, featuring an enormous miniature golf course, self-serve brewery and winery, pickleball courts, a vast beer garden, a live-music stage, and much more. The name of Kuhn’s new themepark is: Dreamland. And since Steve does not think small, the facility is nearly complete and will open in November. Steve gave me a surreal advance tour of the facility, which I expect will make the next edition of the Eyewitness Travel Guide USA. Don’t miss the giant blow-up from Open Borders near the end of the minigolf course.
14. The official per-capita GDP of Texas is only slightly above-average for the U.S. On the ground, however, living standards seemed much higher, especially for working- and middle-class residents. In every part of Texas I saw, almost any two-earner couple could instantly afford a three-bedroom house. Nice places outside of Austin were starting at $180k.
15. Lots of Texans I talked to fretted that non-Texan migrants from the rest of the United States were “turning Texas blue.” The “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs” meme came up occasionally: California leftists migrant to Austin for the opportunities, then vote for policies that ultimately make those opportunities dry up and blow away. The true story seems more complicated; my friend Ben Powell pointed out that in the so-called “canary in the coal mine” Beto-Cruz senatorial race, voters born in Texas were actually more Democratic than voters born elsewhere. Check it:
16. Seven years ago, Tyler Cowen published a cover story in Time called “Why Texas Is Our Future.” All of his reasons hold up, but let me add one more. The chief problem with Texas is the great shortage of Texans, especially in the west. As more and more folks move to Texas, this chief problem dies on the vine.
17. Call me crazy but this song is better than Sinatra’s “New York, New York” or Huey Lewis’ “I Love L.A.”
READER COMMENTS
Denver
Oct 13 2020 at 10:43am
I would like to see data similar to Ben Powell’s, but “How many generations has your family been in Texas?”, not simply “Were you born in Texas?”.
Here’s a possible story of immigration. Someone is born in California, and is raised to be Californian. This person moves to Texas, but does not get involved in politics, maybe because they’re apolitical, or maybe because they feel like a guest. This person then has a child who is then raised by their Californian parents, and otherwise votes like a typical Californian. Except, the child doesn’t have any qualms about voting.
This seems like a plausible story that many immigrant families might face.
Mark Z
Oct 13 2020 at 3:13pm
I was thinking, somewhat similarly, that age was a big confounder here. Young people I’m assuming lean heavily left, and are also less likely to be transplants (though more likely to be children of transplants) than old people.
So I’d ask how voting correlates with transplant status controlling for age.
Julian
Oct 15 2020 at 10:23am
It’s like it happened with Cubans to a degree. The first generations who moved were almost uniformly Republican, because the memories of big government were still vivid in their minds. Their children, however, are more split politically.
I feel the same dynamic is happening with Californian transplants.
Komori
Oct 13 2020 at 11:21am
Growth in Texas has definitely been crazy, and I only moved here from Colorado in the 90s. Friends who have lived here longer have much more dramatic changes to comment on. Not that this is unique to Texas, of course.
I will say there very much are bad areas of town, especially the big cities like Dallas and Houston. As for the homeless camps in Austin, well, our city council has decided that San Francisco is the ideal model of how a city should handle homelessness. The Governor disagrees.
Although, with the voting demographics stuff, now I’m wondering how that applies to elected officials and non-elected government employees. I would not be remotely surprised if it did not match the percentages in the general Texas population.
Shon
Oct 13 2020 at 12:05pm
“I Love LA” is Randy Newman, not Huey Lewis. Otherwise as someone who has lived in Texas for the past 18 years, this post is spot on.
Max
Oct 13 2020 at 12:08pm
As a Very Online millennial, I’ve noticed that Austin specifically, Texas more generally, has become something of a Schelling point for based elites. “Based” here meaning contra-woke or extreme social justice ideology. Joe Rogan most famously, but a number of others like Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holliday, a number of VCs; I have a number of Twitter mutuals who have relocated. I just moved here two weeks ago and I’ve met a number of folks who fled SF and NYC.
BC
Oct 13 2020 at 12:39pm
It makes sense that people that fled high-tax CA and NY for low-tax TX would not be inclined to vote to reimpose high taxes on themselves. There’s a lot of self-selection in migration.
Maybe, TX is turning blue not because of in-migration of left-leaning people but because rapid growth produces high-population cities, which tend to be more leftist than rural areas. In-migration may lead natives to become more progressive even if the in-migrants themselves are not particularly left-leaning. Despite the connotations of progressive vs. conservative, regulation is usually designed to *resist* change: slow job “churn” (which is usually perceived as job loss), protect union jobs, slow housing development (preserve neighborhood “character”), preserve environmental conditions, keep rents the same (rent control), etc. Most regulation takes the current state, or even the state 5-10 years ago, as the ideal and tries to preserve that state forever more into the future. It would make sense that natives might turn to Big Government to slow down change brought by economic growth and in-migration.
Michael Pettengill
Oct 13 2020 at 7:18pm
Californians would natural want to limit the number of competitors by limiting Texas funding people like California does to create high income professional and business starters.
Its standard ‘climb the government ladder to success and then pull up the ladder”. Why isn’t Texas offering Texans tax incentives to start businesses and build factories in Texas equal to or larger than offered to Californians or Taiwanese?
Al
Oct 13 2020 at 2:23pm
So uncontrolled growth without any ethics, zoning, high property taxes for the middle class, a police state almost in any populated areas, Draconian sentencing for minor crimes including marijuana, climate change out of control, water usage is a non-starter, come live in the trenches for a while instead of driving around.
Alexander Turok
Oct 14 2020 at 1:56pm
Not sure if you’re talking about Texas, California, both, or neither.
Julian
Oct 15 2020 at 11:16am
How are those “ethics” working out for much of California? One thing can be said about Democrat California, is that it does “regulate” “growth”. How’s that regulation working out?
Michael Pettengill
Oct 15 2020 at 3:04pm
Why is population declining in red rural America, if low costs, low taxes/government spending, low regulation are so fantastic for the economy?
Alexander Turok
Oct 16 2020 at 10:34am
Because economic activity is shifting to the cities, as it has for decades. But they aren’t moving to California or NYC…
Jimbo
Oct 16 2020 at 12:12pm
Rural America has been on the decline since the second half of the 19th century, as we began industrializing.
But much of economic policy in America is decided at the state level, not local. And this regard, red states have been massively gaining population from blue states, and creating jobs at a more rapid pace.
Chris H
Oct 13 2020 at 2:42pm
Huey Lewis?!? Randy Newman wrote “I Love LA”.
Ken Dickson
Oct 13 2020 at 4:20pm
We multi-generational Texans do not want to make Texas another California. Our state is successful because of less regulation restricting business, life, religion, and freedom.
Though we do not oppose legal immigration either from other states or abroad, as long as they subscribe to our quality of life and language. We enjoy good jobs, healthy state government, and quality of life due to a sensible lifestyle. We do not want to change that by immigration or otherwise.
MarkW
Oct 13 2020 at 4:49pm
For Texas song I’d go with Lyle Lovett. Bonus lyric for the immigration advocate:
“That’s right you’re not from Texas
But Texas wants you anyway”
For outdoor activities, though it’s way out of the way, Big Bend National Park is amazing, and the relaxed attitude about the border inside the park is lovely. Paddle the river through one of the canyons and you often really won’t know if you’re in American or Mexican waters and nobody fusses about it (though the official instructions are to be sure to stay on the right side of the river). It’s a shame, though, that this guy is no longer around to paddle across the river and busk on the U.S. side.
Michael Pettengill
Oct 13 2020 at 6:50pm
When Texas pols use Texas taxes to bribe outsiders to move to Texas to create the kinds of businesses high taxes pay to create, how can higher taxes in Texas be avoided. Outsourcing education, research, development, market creation to blue states not mean red states won’t eventually need to pay the price of outsourcing their future.
Its ironic the biggest factory in Texas is being built to manufacture vehicles for blue states like California while Texas prohibits the sale of those vehicles in Texas. A factory built by a company run by an illegal immigrant given amnesty making him a billionaire African American with the life goal of getting rid of burning fossil fuels. But he does want to build charter cities on Mars.
He also has a rocket factory in Texas which is largely a legacy of a big government tax and spend Democrat, LBJ, who brought home the bacon from DC, along with other Texans. That government money built up Texas government universities to compete with Massachusetts and California et al universities.
But if not for California government policies set by California voters, those factories would never exist in Texas. After all, if you can’t sell a product in Texas, Texas will never drive the creation of a business selling such products. The Golden Egg is the product sales California voters promotes.
Alexander Turok
Oct 14 2020 at 2:00pm
One could have (and indeed, they did) made a similar free-rider argument on West Germany versus the East.
What?
Michael Pettengill
Oct 15 2020 at 3:12pm
Tesla sales are banned in Texas, the site of the newest Tesla factory, planned to be so large its called a Terafactory, not a Gigafactory. Elon was born in Africa, and is now a US citizen, thus African American. He violated his visa, thus he was illegally in the US according to Trump, Miller, et al.
Alexander Turok
Oct 16 2020 at 10:39am
Plenty of states ban direct sales of cars, that’s not the same as saying cars themselves cannot be sold.
LOL.
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