Is your city welcoming to out of state transplants?

43 comments

  1. Out of state, out of country. We have plenty, people only mind the ones that jaw about how this and that worked back home nonstop.

  2. More or less though there’s a very vocal contingent that doesn’t like those of us who ain’t from around these parts. They also dislike the general growth and future of the city and think we should be back in 1950 so I try not to take it too personally unless they shit on the area I moved here from.

  3. Hometown: Somewhat. If you’re from New England or the Midwest yeah, but definitely a bit of resentful towards Californians.

    Current town: Yeah, it’s a big city so lots of transplants.

  4. A solid chunk of NYC’s reason for being is to provide a place for 20-something midwesterners to “make it in the big city”. In practice, “making it” to these people seems to mean ubering everywhere because you’re too scared of the subway, talking shit about your hometown to anyone within earshot, and posting rooftop sunset pictures with the caption “NYC…you’re alright sometimes.”

    They’re a natural part of our ecosystem, it would be hypocritical of me to complain too much when all true New Yorkers get sent to Florida to die.

  5. It depends what you mean by welcoming. We’re not hostile, we don’t dislike people from other areas (unless they complain about how much they hate it here). But my city (Seattle) is kind of famous for being difficult to make friends in. I think it’s because we’re overall more introverted than many other cities.

  6. I have heard a lot of people in Houston express sentiments like “immigrants welcome, Americans go home.”

    In practice, we’re pretty welcoming to both, but I do still think the population that least assimilate are white Americans from states other than Louisiana.

  9. Judging from r/minnesota, we seem to be getting a lot in recent months, owing to political factors. The sub had to make an FAQ about moving here.

    The upper midwest is welcoming, but it can be a bit difficult to penetrate into friend circles. I think that holds true for a lot of places. I can definitely see it to a greater degree in the midwest though. And I noticed it personally when I moved home after being out of state for 9 years. It was hard to start over.

    However, once you do make friends here, they’re not the kind that drift away.

  10. I’d say my city is at least 75% transplants thanks to the Colleges, tech companies, and the military

  12. As much shit as people talk about Oakland, I’m willing to bet most residents here are transplants. Seriously, it’s rare that I encounter another Oakland or East Bay native around here. Instead I often see people either from the Northeast, the Midwest, or from somewhere abroad like Asia or Latin America.

  13. Not really, we have a reputation for being home to the “Seattle freeze,” where transplants have a very hard time making friends.

    I dunno, I don’t have any ill will towards the transplants, I just don’t have much in common with most of them and don’t find them all that interesting to hang out with.

  14. Depends. I’m a navy brat so I’ve lived all over the country. For the most part people don’t blink an eye but in small towns, I’m looking at you New England, you could live there for twenty years and still be an outsider.

  15. Given that folks consider being a native Atlantan as I am to be an oddity, yes, Metro Atlanta is overall welcoming. Further narrowing it down, where I live now in Alpharetta is overwhelmingly transplants, a significant portion of them being Asian (as in Indian Subcontinent) immigrants.

  16. Tennessee is one of the states that Californians are moving to en masse. Nashville, in particular, gets hundreds of new people every day.

    I can’t speak on behalf of every Nashvillian, but I’m very quick to welcome anyone who chooses to come live here and contribute to our great state.

    I don’t care if you just stepped off the plane at BNA. If you’re here, and you’re staying, you’re one of us, and I’ve got your back. (Subject to rites of passage; pending attendance at a Preds game and trip to Prince’s hot chicken)

  17. Maine always likes to hate on out of staters because we get a lot of summer residents from out of state.

    That said people are by and large welcoming to out of staters that move here permanently. I’m from the Midwest originally and no one has ever given me a hard time for being “from away.”

    Rhode Island had a similar inclination, there’s a lot of pride in being from Rhode Island but it doesn’t really translate to dislike of transplants.

  18. Not necessarily. I suggest you change over your license plates pretty quick.

  20. No not at all. Forget it if you’re not white or native American. But you can expect open harassment and bigotry based on being a transplant. Im a transplant, been here 10 years but I am a mountain man so not a lot of people realize it. Population has slightly declined over the last 50 years and id expect that to pick up pace, it seems a new fire destroys a few hundred homes every year and most are not rebuilt. But yeah 85% white, mostly over 65 and not tolerant at all.

  21. If the majority of Raleigh isn’t out of stant transplants, it sure seems like it.

  22. DC is mostly all transplants and they are tolerated, welcomed even, but they are also resented because they price all the locals out and usually come with a strong sense of white saviorism.

  24. (I’m commenting on a state level, because I live in a small, rural village).

    I would say on a personal level, people from Vermont are mostly welcoming, although its a state where people tend to keep to themselves, so really integrating in a new circle can be difficult.

    On a more abstract level (meaning, online, like on Reddit), some people tend to be very hostile to newcomers, mainly due to the severe housing shortage in the state, especially rentals, and particularly in the Burlington area. Anyone with in-demand skills (medicine, education, trades) is welcome, but remote workers and those who “just want to move to Vermont” because they think its a Progressive paradise (it isn’t…) are generally told to look elsewhere.

    I’m a transplant who moved here a few years prior to the pandemic, when the housing market wasn’t nearly so tight. I brought one of those in-demand skills, so I’ve generally been welcomed. However, I am one of those “likes to keepnto himself” types (one of the reasons I moved here), so I don’t have an extensive social life beyond my family. I’m fine with that, but others mileage may vary.

  26. Buffalo loves all the people moving into the area, improving city streets block by block.

    I mean it’s only fair considering people from Buffalo have been moving to other states for decades.

  27. I’m a Californian living in Arkansas. I’ve found people are very welcoming. I don’t come in trying to change things as though I know better though.

  28. Oh heck.

    I live in northern Virginia, just a bit outside DC. Everyone is from somewhere else.

    To be totally fair I technically live right on the border of northern Virginia and where it turns into Central Virginia, so in the northern edge of my county everyone is from somewhere else, and on the southern edge of my county are people who’ve had family in the county since George Washington grew up here.

  29. Chicago is very welcoming, as I can attest as a former transplant myself. The suburbs somewhat less so.

  31. Folks in the intermountain west don’t really like when Californians move in because locals blame them for coming in with a lot of money and driving up the housing prices here. There is something to that but it’s also greedy real estate investors that are to blame for the outrageous and rising cost of living in the west, not regular folks who are just trying to escape it.

  32. My accent makes me stick out, I am from NYC and currently in rural WI. Every place in WI that I lived was welcoming. Dubuque, IA was the most hateful place I ever lived.

  34. Yes, but I’m not.

    My city has long been a center for transplants in a lot of different industries and levels of education. However recently there has been a massive influx of college educated white tech workers who not only come in and displace long time POC residents, but then talk down to everyone here about our states “troubled racial history”.

    I can take you talking shit about my home city/state or destroying the housing market while telling me things were better where you can from, but I’m not taking both.

  35. Currently in Huntsville from Birmingham. This city is nothing but transplants.

  36. Unfortunately too welcoming. The State of Florida and my little chunk of west central Florida is comprised almost entirely of Yankees. It’s making me want to move back up into the Deep South.

  38. Heh

    No they don’t like me, but I’m a college student, so I have a better reason than most

  39. Sort of. Work from home Yuppies are driving up housing costs (and arguably other costs, though with less direct proof), though, and locals are becoming quite resentful of that.

    I dont think it’s a uniquely PA thing, but three densely populated states surround us and people come here to work from home but be close enough that they can get to work relatively tinely in an emergency.

    There is SEVERE suburbinzation on prime farm land because its better to sell an over market house to a yuppie than deal with byzantine and malicious farm legislation. And were gonna slowly starve as a result as global warming makes that farm land even more valuable.

  41. Bumper stickers seen in Denver:

    Save an elk, shoot a land developer!

    NATIVE

    Don’t Californicate Colorado

    We’re Full

    So yeah, anti-transplant sentiment is high here. I don’t mind the individuals, but this growth boom and housing price gouging has to stop. Save an elk, shoot a land developer indeed.

  42. It depends where they’re from and how they act.

    Normal guy moving here for work or skiing? Cool

    Texan/Southerner here to evangelize about wherever they’re from? Please stay home.

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