Some residents are leaving Bakersfield, although trends suggest population growth.

Bakersfield wasn’t a problem when Angel Przybylski and her husband left town for South Carolina this summer. She said it had more to do with the governor of California and Sacramento politics.

However, life in Summerville, South Carolina has been pleasant the past few months. The ocean is less than an hour away and the couple, now in their 50s, don’t have to work as hard to pay the bills.

“Here we don’t have to fight as hard to stay afloat financially as we did in California,” said Przybylski, a real estate agent who spent 20 years in Bakersfield after growing up in Southern California.

The data shows stories like hers have become more common, likely due to rising costs of living and other costs such as taxes and gas prices that are more a feature of California than something unique to Kern County.

The trend of people leaving Bakersfield is easy to overestimate, since the state’s larger cities are seeing a larger exodus. Additionally, long-term expectations are that the Central Valley could increase its population in the coming years, easily outpacing the pace of people leaving the region.

It may come as a surprise that residents are leaving Bakersfield. The city has long attracted people from places like the Los Angeles Basin, where expensive housing contrasts sharply with local affordability.

The fact that someone will leave the city is often met with a certain defensiveness and even mistrust at the local level. It’s possible that some people leaving the city are simply moving to more rural parts of the state, Kern County Chief Economic Development Officer Jim Damian said in an email Tuesday.

“But overall… Kern and Bakersfield are still growing while many other areas (in California) are not,” Damian wrote.

The latest data doesn’t contradict him, but it does suggest a trend for some people to pack up and leave Kern County.

Online mortgage service Redfin reports that between July and September, nearly a third of people who used the website wanted to move out of Bakersfield, while two-thirds planned to stay here. The company said their most popular planned destination was San Luis Obispo, followed by Portland, Oregon, and Reno.

In addition, Bakersfield was ranked in the top 20 cities for the first time this year that people are moving from to another area.

Proprietary data released in May by moving and storage company PODS showed Bakersfield ranked 18th nationally, just behind Fresno, which also made the list for the first time in 2024.

The fact that no fewer than seven California cities made the rankings tells PODS researchers that the relocation trend is more of a statewide phenomenon than a local one. He noted that Los Angeles and San Francisco topped the list again this year, in that order. Other California cities in the ranking were San Diego (eighth), the Stockton-Modesto area (ninth) and Santa Barbara (10th).

PODS also reported that people leaving their hometowns typically head to the southern Appalachian region, as well as Boise, Idaho; Florida; Phoenix; and Portland, Maine.

Exactly how PODS came up with the rankings is unclear, Bakersfield city spokesman Joe Conroy said in an email. The company didn’t explain its methodology or say whether it ranks cities versus counties, he noted, adding that while moves in and out occur frequently, Bakersfield tends to see net growth over time.

“We continue to see demand for housing in Bakersfield as it is one of the most affordable places to live in California,” Conroy wrote. “The City continues to work to support the development of both market-rate and affordable housing.”

Official sources indicate all recorded emigration to Bakersfield and Kern.

In April, the state Department of Finance reported that Bakersfield’s population increased eight-tenths of 1% from the previous year to 411,109. Conroy noted that this is the largest increase among California’s 10 largest cities.

Bakersfield home appraiser Gary Crabtree, a longtime observer of the local home market, suggested rising prices are likely driving people out of town. Entry-level homes have risen in price by nearly a quarter over the past three years, he said by email, partly because materials and labor costs have risen and because crime and homelessness have “introduced motivation” in recent years.

Moreover, the local oil industry is moving jobs to other states, while some residents are interested in moving to live with or near family elsewhere, Crabtree wrote.

President Bill Mell of the Bakersfield Association of Realtors emphasized in an email Tuesday that Bakersfield remains more affordable than the coast and that the state government projects the valley will add 5 million new residents by 2060.

Yes, he wrote, home values ​​in Bakersfield have risen along with mortgage interest rates.

“However,” he added, “forecasts for the Central Valley show that over the long term, Bakersfield’s affordability and quality of life should make it increasingly attractive as California’s leaders prioritize the needs of our region.”