Escape From New York

Tax refugees staging escape from New York:
"New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers -- and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.
More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.
The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City -- meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out."

I left New York in 1995 after receiving an early buy-out from NYNEX. The main reason for the move was the affordability factor. My property taxes had gone from $3K to $5K plus, water and electricity rates were the highest in the nation, and I was paying State and City income tax that was going nowhere but up. In so far as housing was concerned LI, actually the Tri-State area, was in a real estate bubble from the day I bought my first house in 1975 until the day I left. I was tired of subsisting in New York but not being able to "live" there.
It turns out I made the right move. It looks like the only ones that will be left are Civil Servants, Politicians, and the poor. I'm always amazed at life's full circle. Harlem was once the place of the rich and famous, then it went down hill and became the place for the poor and crime. Just within the last few years it found new life with the migration of Urban Pioneers, however I think it will soon return to its roots of crime and poverty along with Brooklyn and the rest of the New York.