Where you live matters. It orients everything from your daily commute to the boundaries of your social circle. Your location also nests you within certain key institutions, which structure and shape how others govern and tax you.
At the same time, most people feel powerless to change the characteristics of the institutions in which they reside. While you can vote for candidates that seem to match your preferences, your single vote won’t decide an election. On the national level, there’s about a one in 60 million chance your vote will make a material difference in the outcome of an election. While the odds are better for local elections, you are still just one vote among many, and your opinions and preferences can be swamped by those who disagree with you.
As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin points out, freedom feels more meaningful when you have the ability to make a decisive choice. One in 60 million feels like a false choice, and can cause despair of ever finding a place where you feel free. Fortunately, there is another way, and that is by voting with your feet.
The Tiebout Model: Voting with your feet
The phrase “voting with your feet” has been used by people across the political spectrum, from Vladimir Lenin to Ronald Reagan. Put simply, it means expressing your preferences for government by moving to a place that already has the institutions you want. For example, many Black southerners voted with their feet in the 20th century during The Great Migration, moving from the Jim Crow south to the less oppressive institutions of the north...
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