Is Texas really doing better than California?

Over at The Enterprise Blog, Ryan Streeter has found a compelling piece of evidence:

Texas’s low-cost, liberty-loving atmosphere has become an attractive alternative to California’s oppressive public sector and dysfunctional policy environment. No amount of heart-melting vistas, celebrity sightings, or traipses through wine country can make up for what almost appears a strategic attempt by one of the nation’s largest states to drive businesses and productive people away.

Thanks to an interesting interactive map at Forbes.com, we now can see some visual evidence of the trends we have been discussing. The map shows county migration in the United States in pictorial form.

I’m gonna gleefully swipe some of his pics. Black lines are in-migration, red lines are out. Here’s Houston:

Here’s Los Angeles:

Austin:

San Diego:

Coming to any real conclusion would require a much closer examination of a much bigger sample than this. I think we can say, though, that Texas is doing something that California isn’t. Or vice versa.

Just for giggles, here’s my home county:

Had to make that one bigger just so you could see something. And here’s Milwaukee:

Yipe.