Report: Where the rich and the poor move when they leave the Bay Area

Debra Jones 61, consulting

Where do you live now? Sacramento

How long did you live in the Bay Area? 36 years

How long has it been since you left? 26 years

What made you leave the Bay Area? I initially left for a career opportunity, but I also had two young kids and couldn't afford to buy a house in the city.

Are you better off now than when you were living in the Bay Area? Yes! I have 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, a pool and a huge lot! I could NEVER afford that in the Bay Area! Plus, my children got excellent educations.

Do you have plans of ever moving back to the Bay Area? I do not have "plans," I have dreams. San Francisco is my home. It's where I was born and raised. I am a graduate of SFUSD, SF State and UC Berkeley. I bleed blue and gold. I rep the Warriors, Raiders, even though my heart belongs to the Pittsburgh Steelers. But I ache for another 49er championship. I miss Muni, BART, flaming hot days in September, foggy damp mornings, the fog horn, the siren on Tuesdays at noon. As I age, my income level will not allow me to age in the place that shaped and molded who I am and my world view.

What do you miss the most about the Bay Area? Walking out of my front door in the morning and stumbling into an adventure. Crab season. The Embarcadero. Muni. The Castro. Noe Valley. Hunter's Point. The Ingleside. Twin Peaks on a clear day. Union Square. North Beach. I want to come home so bad, it hurts. less Debra Jones 61, consulting

Where do you live now? Sacramento

How long did you live in the Bay Area? 36 years

How long has it been since you left? 26 years

What made you leave the Bay Area? I initially ... more Photo: Max Whittaker/Prime, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Max Whittaker/Prime, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Why people moved out of the Bay Area 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

When people leave the Bay Area, where do they go? It depends on their income level, a new study indicates.

The study, published in September by BuildZoom and the UC Berkeley Terner Center, found that wealthy people tend to leave California, while the poor tend to stay in the Golden State.

Many of the high-income households that left the Bay Area between 2010 and 2016 moved to other high-cost markets with dynamic economies, with New York, Seattle, Washington D.C. and Denver at the top of the list. Southern destinations, including Dallas, Houston and Austin, were also popular among out-migrants. People who stayed in California tended to favor expensive metros like Los Angeles and San Diego.

READ ALSO: What a Bay Area native learned after moving to Sacramento

The report paints an entirely different picture for low-income people, especially poor black and Hispanic people. More than 55 percent of Bay Area out-migrants in households earning less than $50,000 a year stayed in California. They tended to move to affordable markets in the greater Sacramento and Central Valley regions.

Lower-income movers were disproportionately black and Hispanic. Where they moved can be broken down by race: Black people tended to cluster around Sacramento, and Hispanics trended toward the Central Valley.

Though these moving trends are not necessarily new to the region, says study co-author Issi Romem, the pattern may become more pronounced as housing prices reach extreme levels of unaffordability. In previous studies, Romem has found that people moving to the Bay Area tend to be wealthier than those leaving it.

"There's polarization on a national scale," he said by phone last week. "If those who earn more start concentrating in different parts of the country, especially coastal cities, that speaks to the kind of polarization driving our politics today."

Romem is the chief economist of BuildZoom and a fellow at the Terner Center. He co-wrote the study with Elizabeth Kneebone, research director at the Terner Center.

Where one lives dictates the sort of resources she has access to. A Berkeley native who moves to Fresno can attend different schools, gain different jobs, reach different services.

Sacramento and Central Valley already have high concentrations of black and Hispanic people relative to the rest of the state, and increasing that concentration is unlikely to increase opportunities for residents.

READ ALSO: Some parents find SF-Bay Area untenable for raising children

"There is a whole host of research and evidence that shows the many ways racial inequalities impose burdens on the people of color experiencing them — from worse health and education outcomes to lower wages, income, and wealth," said Kneebone.

Some low-income out-movers reside outside the Bay Area, but must commute into the region for work. This reality has created a new group of commuters and super commuters (people who spend more than 90 minutes getting to and from work).

A new study authored by BuildZoom and the UC Berkeley Terner Center indicates where people move when they leave the Bay Area, and how income and race influence their destinations. A new study authored by BuildZoom and the UC Berkeley Terner Center indicates where people move when they leave the Bay Area, and how income and race influence their destinations. Photo: BuildZoom/Terner Center Photo: BuildZoom/Terner Center Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Report: Where the rich and the poor move when they leave the Bay Area 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

The population of super commuters into San Francisco grew by 112.7 percent between 2005 and 2016, according to a study of U.S. Census data compiled by Apartment List. Stockton in the Central Valley has the highest proportion of super commuters of any U.S. metro, the study found. Long commute times take an immense mental and physical toll on an individual basis, and increase commute times for everyone by exacerbating traffic issues and taxing public transit systems.

ALSO READ: Stunning increase in Bay Area 'super commuters' in the last decade amid housing crisis

Historically, minority and poor populations have clustered in cities, where they have access to greater resources. That's been changing rapidly since 2000, Kneebone said. Her and Romem's research indicates that low-income, black and Hispanic residents in the Bay Area have been moving well beyond the region's suburbs, outside the "increasingly expensive Bay Area footprint," Kneebone said.

Romem predicts the region defined as "the Bay Area" will expand as people continue to move outward. "Areas that are rural will have traffic jams and eventually become a part of the area economically, even though they don't resemble a city," he said.

The out-migration of low-income people may also exacerbate an ongoing issue in the Bay Area: the dearth of unskilled laborers. At the same time, teachers, policemen, firefighters and other professions that don't earn six-figure tech salaries will continue to move away, or be forced to commute long distances.

"It's already very hard here," Romem said. "It can get worse."

One's ability to live comfortably in the Bay Area may eventually come to depend less on how much you earn and more on what Romem defines as "your luck in life — who you are and where you were born."

"As the Bay Area becomes more expensive, you need a large sum of money to buy a home, to make a down payment, to get a reasonable loan," he said. "That's going to be harder and harder to do without support from parents." Parental support can be both explicit (lending children money or co-signing loans) and implicit (paying for college or assisting with childcare). At the extreme, Romem envisions a society divided into renter and owner classes — and it doesn't look fair or diverse.

READ ALSO: Incensed by NIMBYism, an East Bay city manager quits — 'My conscience won't allow it'

There is a way to slow the Bay Area's current migration trends, Romem and Kneebone note: Building more and preserving existing affordable housing in neighborhoods where the risk of displacement is high.

Romem stressed density-forward construction, like high-rise apartment buildings, but also a reinvention of the traditional single-family home. Instead of developing cities around commercial areas that have lost their "industrial or retail mojo" or transit stations (the current M.O.), Romem wants to see small vacant lots and homes transformed into multi-family residences not nearly as towering as high-rises, but large enough to accommodate more than one family.

A paradigm shift is necessary, he said, because the Bay Area belongs to a broader public than just the current populace.

"If we decide there can't be development here, we're shutting future residents out."

Read Michelle Robertson's latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.

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