The real reason is that wages, real estate, and other costs of doing business are lower in these states compared to more “long-established” states like New York, California and Massachusetts. These depend very little on conservative/liberal economic policies. OF COURSE it will cost more to open and operate a factory in New York City than in Wyoming. What we are seeing now is the revolutions in transportation and information have overcome the disadvantages and now made it possible to run an office or factory in the hinterlands. This was not practical before but is now, so society is adjusting by spreading out business operations to take advantage of these cost advantages. This is not a liberal or conservative thing. For example, read about the experience of this small business that moved from California to North Carolina: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119990682779278467.html?mod=rss_Small_Business_Link

This is not materially different from international outsourcing. China has experienced incredible job growth especially in the manufacturing area and stunning growth in their GDP to match, recently. Surely you cannot argue that this is as a result of their “conservative economic policies” (they are nominally a Communist country). No, it is a result of advances in information and transportation connectivity now making it possible for companies to take advantage of the cost differential. The world is becoming flatter, and a wave of manufacturing activity is washing from the U.S. over to China to compensate.

As a final piece of evidence, take a look at the average housing costs per state in 2004. http://www.realmarketing.com/Stats/state-housing-costs.htm
See that only two of the ten states you listed have housing costs (barely) above the U.S. average. Housing costs directly correlate to local wages and cost of property and plant. Cost to purchase real estate is not moved by conservative or liberal state government; it moves based on whether people want to live there.

Conservative economic policies can help a bit, particularly providing a good value proposition (providing lots of value of state-provided services per tax dollar collected), which many red states do better than some blue states. But 90% of why these ten states are growing so fast is due to what I discussed above.

P.S. Why are these ten states all red? States voting for Dems seems to correlate with wealth and population density of the people. These states are growing precisely BECAUSE the people demand less in wages and live more spaced out (so real estate costs less). So of course they’re red.

Also I think that a higher % of gays in blue states (if that is even the case) aren’t the reason for their lower birthrates. Two things seem to impact birthrates: welfare which means you don’t have to rely on your children in retirement (check) and lack of a belief system in God/country/future (check). Thus both New England and Europe are dying, but the South is actually growing.

Actually, the county level is the better measure than state level.

Illinois is blue only due to Chicago. The rest of Illinois is red.

California is blue only because of the Gay Area. The rest of the state is red. Even Southern California is quite red, and without the Gay Area, the whole state would be red.

Pennsylvania is red without Philadelphia. Washington is red without Seattle.

You get the picture.

I kind of like the ALL CAPS THING.

You are correct, however, that SOME states, like Florida, do draw snow-escaping retirees. But that doesn’t account for ALL of Florida’s growth, nor does it account for the all the growth that those other states have been experiencing. How many snow-escaping retirees move to Colorado, Utah, and Idaho?

It amazes me to no end how so many intellectually snobby liberals can be oblivious to what anyone with half a brain can see- when people and businesses vote with their feet, they vote for states with conservative economic policies. That’s why all the people I went to high school with in Upstate New York now live in Florida, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

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Actually I can, quite accurately. This is a change that has been taking place over time. It doesn’t happen over night. These states in the list have been gradually growing over several years while the population growth in the northeastern states has dramatically slowed and even declined in some cases.

The money you have left in the northeast is mostly old money. A lot of the wealth has been there for generations but you will see that change as this trend continues and those people die off. It’s your middle class people that are leaving those states because they are the ones hurt the most by their dragging economies. The wealthy don’t need to leave.