young families ran out of affordable cities with good schools to move to. The early LDS people lived in the City of Los Angeles and their kids couldn't afford LA proper, so they moved to Highland Park (or some other close city). (same story for people moving south to Orange County.) The next generation moved to Glendale. Great schools and affordable. This happened until the kids moved to Santa Clarita. Great schools, reasonably affordable, and you could still commute downtown if you had to (use the train). From Santa Clarita the next area was Palmdale/Lancaster. Bad schools, gangs, and too far to reasonably commute to good jobs. My kids couldn't afford Santa Clarita and they never even considered Palmdale, so they went to Texas and Utah. We followed three of them to Utah and visit the two in Texas. A ton of our friends from Santa Clarita have moved to Utah and we have Santa Clarita reunions just about every year. My kids loved growing up in CA and we would not have moved if they would have stayed. But it got too expensive, (and yes the State is a mess) so they moved and we followed.