‘California Here I Come’ May Fall Off the Charts : Earthquake: Natural disaster seldom sends real Californians packing, but it will discourage would-be Californians.

As the frightening images of the Bay Area earthquake sink into the subconscious, one wonders whether a few terrifying moments have tarnished California’s demographic future. Will people succumb to fear of future shocks and move away? Will outsiders shun California as a place to settle?

Answers to such questions are necessarily speculative, but I will venture several demographer’s guesses: No major exodus of Californians is in store. However, the Oct. 17 quake has set the stage for a sharp reduction in the flow of population into California from other states. Another destructive quake this year or next would frighten off many prospective newcomers. Cutting that infusion of outside talent and ambition would jar California’s economy and housing market. And that would alter the long-term demographic outlook, creating a seismic zone of slowed population growth.

This prediction can be argued by analogy from past episodes involving sudden adversity, and from studies into why people want to migrate and how they translate their inclination into action.

Simply put, the argument boils down to a few principles.

First is the “Irish potato famine” principle: People pack up and leave only after they have experienced hard times for several years in a row. In their own minds, Californians will dismiss this calamity as an aberration, not a permanent state of affairs.

This principle is borne out in Californians’ responses to suburban brush fires, mudslides and the other “aberrations” that periodically disrupt their lives. Even when such catastrophes have happened on a large scale, they haven’t induced migratory flight; in fact, they have come to be regarded as an inevitable part of life in California. More than a few people in the Bay Area may fleetingly consider moving as they watch the dust settle. Experience, however, shows that Californians will rebuild their shattered or charred homes, usually on the same spot.

Next is a common-sense principle of relative deprivation, and the related human tendency to deny uncomfortable realities. Easterners shake their heads when Californians build and rebuild their homes in the dry hills within commuting distance of the San Andreas Fault. Californians shrug off the hazards of seismic activity, convinced that avoiding a dozen frigid winters is worth enduring one earthquake.

Surveys have shown how the principle of relative deprivation shapes people’s satisfaction with where they live and lowers their inclination to leave. Residents of economically depressed regions, where jobs are scarce and incomes low, nonetheless regard themselves as no worse off than people elsewhere. The local realities of economic deprivation don’t coalesce into a state of mind urging departure.

People tend to screen out the unpleasantries in opting to remain where they are, rather than developing a rational justification for choosing to live with hazards. That’s why some stay put along seismic faults and crumbling cliffs, and others endure bitter-cold winters. Californians may think they know something that Easterners don’t; but so long as the reverse remains true, almost everybody in both places stays put, each relatively deprived in the other’s view.

Far more significant than potential out-migration from this state are states of mind beyond California’s boundaries. Another severe California quake in the near future might frighten off would-be newcomers for years. California then would seem like a nice place to visit, but no place for sensible non-Californians to settle.

Now, there’s a thought.