Texas Exodus: 14 Reasons People Are Fleeing the Lonestar State
Two characters on the acclaimed television series Friday Night Lights exchanged the phrase “Texas forever” to signify their bond. Unfortunately, a spate of former Texans leaving the state can attest that Texas is decidedly not forever for some.
While Texas leads most states in the growth of its young population, many counties throughout Texas have been losing population for years. With its low taxation policies, ripe business climate, culture of freedom, and abundance of warm weather, why would anyone leave the Lone Star State?
Let’s explore that San Antonio-sized question.
1. Unreasonable Costs of Living
With every large-scale influx of new residents comes a fight for homes and rentals. Many people competing for a fixed number of residences drive rent and home prices ever higher. High shelter costs have the greatest capacity to put financial strain on a population.
Texas has about 4.2 million renters, and more than half of them are handing over 30% or more of their monthly income to the landlord and utility companies. If you want a recipe for indebtedness, there it is.
2. Overcrowding
Whenever rents and housing prices rise due to population density (as in cities like Austin), you can bet that overcrowding isn’t limited to the housing market. Traffic, limited parking spaces, incessant wait times at the city’s best restaurants, and not a square inch of space on the jogging trails are all telltale signs of overcrowding.
Heck, even the jails in Texas’ large metropoles are becoming overcrowded. For some, the only pressure release is leaving the state.
3. Extreme Weather
Texas is well-known for its extreme heat. What many new Texans didn’t bargain for, though, were winter storms ferocious enough to freeze the power grid.
You could forgive those who lived through the 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts for being scared stiff (pun intended). Jokes aside, at least 57 people died due to the loss of power amid severe freezing. Pair the freezes with the 110-degree heat in the summer, and you wouldn’t exactly call Texas’ weather a pull factor.
4. Disproportionate Inflationary Pressures
Rent and mortgages are just one area Texans face the financial hardshipes that Texans have endured more steep price increases, including for food, than residents in most other states.
52% of Texans have reported “high inflation stress,” the sixth highest of all states. This does not jibe with the “low cost of living” mantra that led so many transplants to the Lone Star State, and the contradiction is part of the reason many are now leaving.
5. Rising Homelessness
Celebrity podcaster Joe Rogan famously fled Los Angeles for Austin, Texas, in 2020. One reason, he has stated, was the increasing number of homeless people occupying LA’s sidewalks.
Can we conclude that Joe Rogan is responsible for the increasing scourge of homelessness in Austin? That’s probably not fair (or scientific). That said, homelessness in Texas grew by 12% in 2023. When homelessness increases anywhere, hardworking citizens tend to leave.
6. California?
Texans have become increasingly acquainted with Californians (like it or not) in the past several years, as transplants from the Golden State have sought calmer, less tax-crazy waters. However, it is less publicized that more Texans have moved from the Lone Star State for California than any other state, with only Florida nearby in the statistics.
Perhaps the type that would live in Austin figures they’d fit in well in California’s laid-back, anything-goes ecosystem. Or maybe they’re just filling the vacancies left by those moving from San Francisco and LA to Austin.
7. Lack of Land
We know that the cost of rent has risen in many populous municipalities throughout Texas. Yet, an even more fundamental problem leads to overcrowding and sky-high living costs: a lack of space for new construction.
The lack of affordable land to complete new construction is one of the most common reasons cited by those fleeing Texas. As a wise man once said, “Buy land, son, they’re not making any more of it.”
8. Cheaper Nearby States with Similar Benefits to Texas
More specifically, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
While these states sometimes get a bad rap as backward, those who have visited discover plenty of natural beauty, relatively low taxes, and hidden-gem communities. Those who are drawn to Texas might be even more drawn to these three nearby states after perusing rental prices in Austin or Dallas for a few minutes.
9. Rising Crime
In a heavily armed community, a streetwise criminal would be smart to think three times before perpetrating any act of violence or property crime. However, there is a large contingent of criminals who are not streetwise.
While crime figures vary by community, Austin’s growing national spotlight has inevitably attracted some less-than-desirable characters, and shortages in the Austin Police Department have exacerbated rising crime. The President of the Austin Police Association said the city’s past three years’ homicide figures are the highest in history, and it’s a trend that some might expect in other major, growing metro areas.
10. Rising Energy Costs
Texas has a robust energy sector, but that hasn’t translated to affordable energy for residents. While the state sends a significant portion of its natural gas to communities outside of Texas, residents have seen a breakneck rise in the cost of energy starting around the onset of the pandemic.
If there was ever a state where you couldn’t leave the windows open during summer and you needed a reliable heat source in the winter, it’s Texas. Those who can’t handle the cost of energy then have little choice but to relocate.
11. Family and Job Opportunities
OK, this one isn’t unique to Texas. That said, whenever you review data about emigration from any state, you must remember that sometimes people must move even though they love life in their former locale.
Someone who loves partying on Sixth Street or feels enmeshed in their tight-knit community in the Dallas suburbs might receive a job offer that doubles their salary. Or, a family emergency might require them to care for an ailing loved one. Texans are not immune to these reasons for immediate relocation.
12. Hurricanes
Historically, states like Florida have been more associated with chronic hurricanes. However, some Texas residents, particularly in Houston, have survived a recent spate of severe storms and aren’t taking any more chances.
One study of Houstonians found that 57% had considered leaving the city and that about half of those respondents cited hurricanes as their potential reason for flight. The city’s apparent penchant for flooding means such storms can have a severe and lasting impact on those affected.
13. Demographic Changes
Let’s face it—people make decisions about where they will live based on who their neighbors will be. This may not jibe with cliches about being tolerant, nonjudgmental, or open-minded, but it’s true—and this truth cuts in all directions.
Whether you’re a lifelong Texan who isn’t thrilled with the Millennial influx in Austin, you live in a border town that has become increasingly chaotic, or you’re in a gentrifying neighborhood that no longer reflects the tight-knit community you once knew, moving due to changes in the world around you is nothing new.
14. Retirement
Texas has its fair share of retirement-friendly communities. However, certain other states (the one that rhymes with “shmorida”) have far more robust infrastructure for retirees.
In fact, Florida has an entire golf-cart-riddled Master Planned community specifically for retirees. While Florida has heat, it also has more water, shuffleboard courts, and retirement communities per capita than any other state (I’m just guessing, but that has to be true, right?). Some older Texans, like older adults in many other states, prefer to retire where it’s most comfortable and feasible.
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