I always wanted to move to Los Angeles. I grew up watching “Dragnet” reruns and listening to the Beach Boys. The agreeable weather, the concentration of interesting stuff to do, the star glam all are beacons to millions of people who’d like to live here.

So I’ve been disheartened lately to learn that, apparently, a fair number of people are leaving Los Angeles.

Take, for example, the op-ed that’s on the opposite page. It essentially says that there’s evidence that residents are leaving the state and Los Angeles faster than people are moving in from other states. The overall population is increasing, yes, but that’s partly because foreign immigrants are arriving here in greater numbers.

The reason, the writer theorizes, is that this area has high taxes and heavy regulations, driving out entrepreneurial types.

I don’t disagree that high taxes and the like can drive out some businesses especially if there’s a low-tax spot nearby, such as Nevada. People often underestimate how taxes change behavior.

In fact, I learned just last week that an acquaintance of mine is moving to, you guessed it, Las Vegas. He’s an entrepreneurial type who believes he’s just invented a better mousetrap of the technical kind. He thinks at least he hopes that money soon will rain down on him like a spring downpour, and he doesn’t want to give a lot of that money to the tax collectors in Los Angeles and Sacramento because he’ll need it to build what he hopes will be a thriving business.

Still, I’ve always harbored the notion that a high-tax area can thrive, so long as it is a desired area. In other words, if there’s enough interesting stuff to do and see, if there’s agreeable weather and some star glam, then Los Angeles or anyplace like it can do just fine, economically, even if it sheds a few tax-phobic entrepreneurial types.

A few months back, another acquaintance said he thought California can afford to levy high taxes and heavy regulations because they serve to keep some businesses and some people out, thereby tamping down on overcrowding and traffic congestion. Fair enough.

But the problem with that theory is that Los Angeles is hampered by some other problems. Traffic makes life and work more difficult, as anyone who’s tried to book more than two lunch dates in one week can tell you. And, of course, prices here are high. Type “cost of living index” in a search engine, and try to find one in which Los Angeles is not the third or fourth most expensive city in the United States. The point: Some folks find the traffic and prices off-putting.

So, here’s the big question: Are people really leaving Los Angeles?

The answer is a little nuanced. According to the state Department of Finance, Los Angeles County’s population increased by a small amount: 64,000 people in the 12 months ended last June 30. However, there was a net loss of 103,000 domestic residents in other words, more moving to other states than moving in from other states. That’s the sixth straight year for a net outflow of domestic residents from Los Angeles. That loss was offset by the 91,000 more births than deaths and 76,000 immigrants.

So it’s a legitimate question to ask policy makers: Would we like to stop the net outflow of domestic residents?

If the answer is yes, then only a few decisions can be made. Cutting cost-of-living prices is, realistically, not one of them.

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at

[email protected]

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