Lori and I have the endlessly fascinating experience of sitting at the kitchen table 3 to 4 times a week, discussing with homeowners the massive, expensive, and life-changing experience of moving.

 

They have many reasons - babies, jobs, relocation, upsizing, downsizing, etc.

 

I’ve always believed moving is good. No one should spend their life in one house. Moving is a change of scene. Any shift in where we live is a shift in how we live. You get to see your life with fresh eyes. And it usually makes us junk half of our stuff, which is always a net positive. Personally, I believe every one of our moves has been a huge upgrade.

 

But there are bad reasons to move. 

 

Some we can’t help, like divorce or job loss.

 

But some we can. And there’s one very bad reason to move, and that’s the simple, unexplainable urge to flee LA.

 

I call this disease movitis—the acute, often irreversible, urge to abandon Los Angeles for somewhere "better."

 

It’s always been around. Let’s face it, LA can be a hard place to love. It’s expensive and densely populated, and in recent years, we’ve faced some really challenging times environmentally (fires) and economically (the entertainment and restaurant industries). Like any big city, an easier life is always calling, especially once you have kids.

 

But the pandemic supercharged movitis into a co-occurring epidemic.

 

You remember your neighbors, armed with remote work flexibility and stimulus checks,  scattering across the country - Boise, Spokane, Portland, Austin, Nashville. Social media filled with triumphant posts about "escaping" LA, often accompanied by photos of sprawling suburban homes that cost half what a fixer Echo Park bungalow would.

 

Again, I’m not talking about good reasons to move. If your family is in Boise and it’s time to move back, great. 

 

I’m talking about that unconscious, anxious, sudden urge to get out, often to some random city that’s only been visited once or twice.

 

Movitis strikes fast and hard. Suddenly, everything gets filtered through the lens of the move. The decision accelerates with frightening speed, yet somehow never feels fast enough.

 

You're simultaneously making the biggest decision of your life and feeling like you can't escape LA quickly enough.

 

This is the cruelest part of movitis: it creates its own urgency. Every LA frustration (the traffic! the homelessness! the cost of gas! and eggs!! and HOUSES!!!) becomes evidence that you need to leave immediately. 

 

At the same time, every positive aspect gets dismissed as not worth the trade-offs. You stop seeing the city clearly and start seeing only through the distorted lens of your imminent departure.

 

The Seven Stages of Movitis

Here's what happens next and why movitis is so insidious: the honeymoon phase ends.

 

You settle into your new city, initially charmed by the novelty. So much parking at the grocery store! Clean streets! Nature! But then, slowly, you start to notice what's missing.

 

You're meeting fewer interesting, accomplished people—the kind of creatives, entrepreneurs, and dreamers you took for granted in LA. And the politics. *Yikes.* There’s one good restaurant, and your big plan of working remotely has resulted in less work (side note: This is the biggest lie you told yourself. Your income will go down. We’ve seen it time and time again.) 

 

Your children's "magical childhood" in a small town hasn't quite materialized either. They're still battling screen time, just with fewer museums, beaches, and cultural opportunities as alternatives. The diversity they grew up with—racial, linguistic, cultural, economic—has been replaced by a more uniform environment that feels safer but somehow smaller.

 

Here's the devastating reality about movitis: it's often incurable once you realize you've made a mistake. The cost—financial, emotional, social—of moving back to LA is prohibitive.

 

Your old network has moved on. Housing prices have likely increased. Your former life has been dismantled.

 

You're stuck in a city that seemed perfect from 2,000 miles away, but feels limiting up close. Mourning the loss of a place you convinced yourself you hated.

 

The best cure for movitis is prevention. Before you succumb to the urge to flee, try this: be a tourist in your own town. Remember why you moved here in the first place.

 

Sometimes the problem isn't Los Angeles—it's that you've stopped participating in it.

 

I’m a kid from a small town in Canada. I came here when I was 18. And I’m an L.A. fanboy. In the last month, I’ve seen Parade at the Ahmanson, the Neil Diamond musical at the Pantages, and next month, I'm taking the kids to Benson Boone at Crypto and Teddy Swims at the Greek. All of these venues are 10 minutes from my house. Did you see the new Lucas museum from the 110? The Olympics! Side note: I’ve lived in two Olympic cities and trust me when I say this - it’s a blast. Do NOT leave town.

 

I could go on and on. Los Angeles isn't perfect, but the energy, the possibilities, the beautiful absurdity of it all—these things exist nowhere else.

 

Don't let a case of movitis convince you otherwise. The cure isn't a change of address.

 

It's a change of perspective.