New York and Calfiornia Losing People - Impending Disaster?

When I was young I had a big extended family in the Los Angeles area.  In the 1980's, as my parents generation moved into retirement virtually all of that generation took advantage of the high price of housing in Los Angeles by selling their house and moving to less expensive places to live (Washington and Oregon).  There they could buy a comfortable house and use the extra money from the sale of their LA house to fund a more comfortable retirement.

I suspect a big part of the reason for the recent spate of hyperbolic headlines about New York and California losing people that have appeared in publications as varied as Fox news and the New York Times has nothing to do with partisan politics, and a lot to do with the fact my generation is now selling their houses in expensive New York and California markets to move to cheaper states for retirement.

California and New York are perhaps the two most economically dynamic states.  As a result they are expensive places to live.  They create lots of wealthy people who drive up prices, so regular folks, when no longer tied to a job and trying to live out their lives on what they have, leave for cheaper living situations.

It's a cyclical phenomena, not a sign of impending doom.