I Love the States People Are Leaving

California and New York continue to lose residents at a rapid clip. I’m a conservative millennial who abhors the current political trajectory of those states, but here’s my predicament: I was raised in one and recently moved to the other. I love them both.

I started out in New York – not the fast-paced, hot-dog selling Big Apple. We’re talking Western New York: wood burning, church going, buy-your-food-from-Amish country. It’s a rugged breed of people. Icy walks to the car each morning for twelve weeks of the year will thicken anyone’s skin. (READ MORE: The Blue State Rescue Plan)

And yet, the fabric I’m cut from is soft. My childhood brimmed with the hard-working and kind: dairy farmers carrying on their parents’ trade, auto mechanics who somehow manage to make a living on affordable and honest service. The landscape mirrored this resilience: a hillside of historical homes standing boldly a mere feet from each other, sycamores and maples providing shade for passing walkers.

The political tapestry of Upstate New York is a weave, but my childhood backdrop had a distinct conservative thread, largely due to the circles in which my family operated. Thus, my New York is a dichotomy: liberal in the sweeping but not in the specific.

So many New Yorkers are laid-back people who just want to blow glass or grow tomatoes in peace. The Albany agenda weighs little upon small town life. Sure, we all put up with high regulation and property taxes — our rotting porches evidence of the opportunity cost.

“That’s just New York,” people quip, often followed by, “One of these days I’m gonna get out of here.”

Many do. And yet, many stay. It’s a reminder that land and culture jointly produce a sense of place, a belonging that often influences people more than politics does. That’s refreshing to me, especially since I just moved to the political cesspool of California.

When we arrived, I expected to find a state peppered by crime, corruption, homelessness, and drugs. Instead, I found familiarity: rugged farmers, budding fruit trees, and chilly morning breezes. Sure, the other stuff is around, but it isn’t immediately shaping my daily life any more than the Trump flags I’m surprised to see along the highway.

Beyond politics, or beneath it, is the beauty of American soil and spirit. So I’m learning to love California through its land: in my case, a small family homestead near Sacramento, the hard-earned purchase of my husband’s grandparents. Who wouldn’t fall in love with an orchard of almond trees surrounded by vibrant alfalfa fields and visiting egrets?

For love of this place, and others like it across our nation, worn farmers under the heavy hand of regulation press on with American fortitude. On both coasts and across a political spectrum of states, businesspeople purchase property and cultivate profit from it, putting up with code inspector visits and permit applications every tedious step of the way. We draw stability and sustenance from our nation’s dirt.

Hasn’t devotion to place been America’s story from the start?

Even during the Revolutionary War, George Washington made plans for his home estate and dreamed of the day he could return to care for it. After the war, many of the generals turned their sights to land acquisition in the West, and those who stayed home tended gardens.

My new highway in California takes me regularly past a historical “Pony Express Route” sign. I think of the men who rode these pathways on horseback, bringing news of loved ones to people who ventured far from their communities to form new ones. This California — dry and dusty, fresh and fruitful — became their home. It’s mine now too.

I think about my birth state and the immigrants who entered America through it. New York gave them roots, first as a salty harbor with a statue of solidarity, and next as an island of grueling work and vast opportunity. The place formed them, just as it formed me. (READ MORE: Those Who Move to a Different State)

True, political decisions play an enormous role in shaping our places. For this reason and others, we should devote ourselves to thoughtful political discourse and action. I, for one, hope the liberal states I love will reset their course toward constitutional ideas instead of outpacing each other toward leftist dystopias.

In the meantime, I’m thankful Americans don’t need to agree with the law of the land in order to love the land itself. We are a divided people, and a unified foundation has many stones. Perhaps a shared love of American places isn’t a terrible one to lay first.

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