AZ India

F E E L A T H O M E www.azindiatimes.com PAGE - 19 Apr 2019 1-844-AZINDIA Why So Many Californians are Moving to the Valley? By Aryan Naik anaikschool@gmail.com 7th grade, BASIS Phoenix ..from page 1 of similar populations. Another big reason is traffic.The Los Angeles metropolitan population is about 13,131,431 and Phoenix metropolitan population is 4,737,270 residents. While Phoenix traffic isn’t the best it’s definitely not nearly as horrific as Los Angeles. Last year CNN reported that in Los Angeles “ drivers spend an extra 44 minutes driving. ” This data shows us that Los Angeles traffic is some of the worst in the nation. “ In 2017, Phoenix was the 15th most congested metropolitan in the country while Los Angeles placed 1st, San Francisco placed 3rd, and San Diego ranked 13th ” (Business Insider). With these statistics, we can say that many Californians want to leave the hectic driving conditions and come to a more spread out relaxed state. Politics is another major cause of this influx of Californian transplants. Many Californians claim that California has gone too far left and the ‘liberal lu- nacy’ has taken over. “ The last time California elected any statewide Republican was in 2006. At that time Democrats outnumbered Republicans 43% to 34% ” ( The Hill ). This shows us that many people living in the Golden State are fed up with all these political ‘problems’ and moving next door to the Grand Can- yon State. Some Arizona natives have problems with Californians coming and directly contributing to Arizona’s tendency to becoming a swing state because many Californians are democrats too. A good thing about Arizona’s growth spurt is that Californians bring along their businesses and create more jobs in the val- ley. The technology industry is seeing huge growth because of this. “ Currently there are over 2,100 promising startups in the state that have set up shop and made over 168,000 jobs in the tech field alone ” ( Chamber business news ). Californians are also filling up the open jobs resulting in a decrease in unemploy- ment. They are also helping out the Arizona economy by buying or renting places to stay, buying food, and other commodities. Another reason Californians choose Arizona over other places is because of Arizona being next door to California so they can drive 6 hours to San Diego or LA from Phoenix or take a short 1-hour flight. Phoenix is also 4 and a half hours from Vegas, 3 hours from The Grand Canyon, and 3 and a half hours to Rocky Point, (Puerto Penasco, Mexico) which is the closest ocean from the Valley. In the coming years, the Californians will continue to relocate to Phoenix. They may as well be your neighbors, let us all get used to this trend.