San Francisco’s Exodus Was to Suburbs, Not Out of State, Knowledge Exhibits

• Those who fled San Francisco last year went to the suburbs, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
• USPS data shows that only a small percentage of people have left the state.
• Tech elites fleeing the area have inspired the narrative that most people are moving to Florida and Texas.

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It’s true: people have been fleeing San Francisco since the beginning of the pandemic.

But while tech luminaries like Elon Musk or Keith Rabois may migrate to Texas and Florida, it doesn’t seem the case for most Bay Area residents.

Instead, they are moving to the suburbs and suburbs of San Francisco.

JK Dineen of the San Francisco Chronicle combed the U.S. Postal Service data from March to November and found 80,371 households left the city during that period, up 77% from 2019. However, the data showed that most households that left San Francisco did not go very far.

According to the Chronicle, the six most popular travel destinations were Alameda, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, and Sonoma, all of the nearby Bay Area counties. The only two destinations outside California in the top 20 were Austin and Denver – 239 and 238 households moved to these areas, respectively, the Chronicle reported.

The Chronicle results show a move away from expensive, crowded city life during the pandemic. In August, Insider’s Katie Canales reported that San Francisco’s housing stock rose 96% year over year as residents flocked to their homes.

This rush to get out of town coincided with a shift in how many companies value working in the office: companies like Twitter, Square, and Slack announced that employees could work remotely permanently, while others, like Facebook, their employees allow you to change your location with the approval of your supervisor.

But it seems that while many residents have used the pandemic as an opportunity to get out of the city, they haven’t moved outside of the commuting distance, belying the popular theory that the majority of those who have left San Francisco are moving to an entirely new one State Drawn – a theory likely driven by a number of high-profile executives who are publicly leaving the region.

Last year, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk publicly left California for Texas after grappling with lawmakers during state-mandated coronavirus lockdowns. Musk said on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast earlier this month that he believes Austin, Texas will be “the biggest boom town America has seen in at least 50 years,” describing the influx as a “mega boom.”

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston has also reportedly moved to Austin; Douglas Merritt, CEO of Splunk software company, travels to Texas, reported The Information; and Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir who currently runs venture capital company 8VC, already resides in Austin with his family and confirmed last year that he is moving his company there as well.

And last year the software giant Oracle announced that it would also move its headquarters from the Bay Area to Austin.

Denver and Miami have also been lauded by new expats from Silicon Valley. Palantir moved its headquarters to Denver after CEO Alex Karp complained that the Bay Area was a “monoculture,” and famed investor Keith Rabois was a strong supporter of Miami, telling Fortune that San Francisco is being inappropriately run as a that he could stay.

Still, the data shows that perhaps mostly the most prominent Silicon Valley titans left the area in what Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, called “silver lining” to the Chronicle. The fact that the majority of people have not left the state means they can return to the city after the pandemic subsides.

“You won’t have to worry about leaving Boise,” he said.

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