The new “White Flight” is about cost of living (and has been for a minute)

We mostly (hopefully?) know about “White Flight V1” (as we’ll call it) whereby, in the 50s and 60s, whites left racially-diverse urban centers for racially-homogenous suburbs and exurbs. Conventional argument today is that White Flight never ended — which is borne out in research that people of different races don’t tend to live near each other.

I’d agree with that, but I think it’s going to continue along different lines: less racial (still racial tho) and more financial.

Let’s frame this up

Here’s a relative cost of living map from about mid-2017:

Look for the reddish colors. See where they’re clustered? Not surprising — coastal areas, specifically Northeast corridor and SF/LA/Seattle.

Problem is, this is where some of the “sexier” jobs — Amazon! Silicon Valley! Boston startup scene! The Big Apple! — are now. But from the same article where I got that map:

For example, the New York City metropolitan area had a 2015 RPP of 121.9, which means NYC and its suburbs are about 21.9% more expensive than the national…