People keep moving to Seattle. What are they thinking?

It's safe to say that since the pandemic, things have been a little difficult for people living in Seattle. Thousands of tech jobs are gone; the cost of living in Seattle seems to still increase. The core of downtown Seattle is struggling, fewer retailers and workers.
But there is new data from the 2024 census that indicates that more people keep moving to Seattle. 

According to seattletimes.com,
‘here’s something that hasn’t changed: People keep moving here.
New 2024 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show about 51,800 people lived in a different state or a different country just 12 months earlier — that’s nearly 7% of the roughly 773,000 Seattle residents age one and older.’ 

Why Seattle? 

Think about this, among the 50 largest cities in the United States, Seattle ranks #3 for drawing new residents to the town just behind Washington DC and Boston. 

The bulk of the influx into Seattle Seems to be what they're calling “domestic migration”. In other words, other people in other cities in the United States moving to Seattle. A very small percentage, about 1.4% moved to Seattle from outside the United States. 

Now when you look at that list of 50 major cities, what cities would you find at the bottom of that list? All cities on the bottom of that list are found in California. Bakersfield is at the bottom of the list with just one percent in 2024 coming from other states and overseas. Fresno, Long Beach, Oakland, and Sacramento are included in the rest of that bottom 5. 

I have to be honest with you; I don't know anybody personally in the last year that has said they were really excited about moving to California. But maybe that's just me.