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Solo converting to DINK here, and for me, after spending years in a city, basically while there's tons to do in a city, there's only a relatively small portion of it that I actually want to do.

Combine that with my love of outdoor hobbies which are all farther from me while living in a city...

And at this point, for me, it's more about finding the smallest city that offers me most of what I like about cities while being small enough that I lose as much of the negatives as possible, with bonus points for a city that's small enough for me to live on the edges, where I can have a house with a yard and a garage, while being within a 10 minute drive of city center, but also less than 30 minutes from outdoor recreation opportunities.

I'm also at the age where "stay home" is often my preferred choice of thing to do, so having a spacious, comfortable home where I can enjoy living is a major consideration. A 500 sqft 1BR that I share with a roommate or two ain't cutting it.

Different people like different things, and while cities provide a lot, there's also a lot they don't.

Nearly half the state population is in NYC alone. Expand that out to the nyc metropolitan area within New York, and you’re getting close to 3/4 of the state population.

It’s quite reasonable to assume that the vast majority of the folks that left New York were leaving NYC.

There are pockets of NY, outside of NYC, that are blue. The big areas that are red are mostly rural counties. But land doesn't vote, people do, so it doesn't matter if 1,000 people in a huge area vote red when 100,000 people in a small city vote blue.

You're right that NYC helps keep us blue, but they aren't the only ones. In 2020, NY voted for Biden over Trump 60.8% to 37.7%. If we removed NYC's counties, NY would have still voted for Biden, but at a much closer 52.4% to 45.9%.

The geographic majority of Washington state is red, but the state is consistently blue. Because land doesn’t vote.

Not alone. It would have to lose ~3% relative to other states to lose a vote. However, this is just one year and southern states are all gaining people at twice the rate New York is losing them, so theoretically a blue vote could be flipping to a red vote every few years just from the amount of people leaving blue states.

Note that when New York loses Congressional seats, the legislature will presumably gerrymander them such that the Republicans in New York are eliminated, so it shouldn't affect Congress at all.

Nice take.

I saw the map and had the same dismal overall reaction but this is a very valid point!