The clearest sign that the "blue model" of governance is failing can be found in statistics compiled by United Van Lines, the nation's largest moving company.  They report that outbound residents in New York outnumber inbound residents by 2-1 – a higher percentage of any state except New Jersey and Illinois.

Overall. the East Coast is seeing an exodus of citizens, with 59% of moves in that region outbound.

Albany Times Union:

The 2016 National Movers Study by Fenton, Mo.- based United also found that almost 59 percent of the moves within the eastern United States were outbound.

Where were people moving? Mostly to western states and the Carolinas, with one exception. That exception was Vermont, which ranked second on the list of states with the highest proportion  -- 67 percent -- of inbound moves.

South Dakota had the highest share of inbound moves, at 68 percent. 

New Jersey and Illinois, like New York, saw outbound moves making up 63 percent of all moves. 

"This year's data clearly reflects retirees' location preferences," said Michael Stoll, an economist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Interestingly enough, these retirees are leaving at such a fast pace that the movement of millennials to urban areas in the Midwest and Northeast is being overshadowed."

In New York, inbound millennials were 27 percent of inbound moves and 19 percent of those moving out. But of those over 65, 26 percent were outbound and 20 percent were inbound.

While retirees make up a significant percentage of people moving out, the fact is, people are voting with their feet.  Walter Russell Mead has written extensively about the failure of the "blue model":

The rise of telecommuting will lead to better, richer lives. Families will be stronger. The environment will benefit from less commuting. All good.

But it also represents the death of the political philosophy and economic system that the Times is otherwise prepared to defend to the last: the blue social model. If this revolution continues—and it will—fewer and fewer people will be stuck in big, high tax, over-regulated cities. While some will still choose to live there, many, especially those raising children, will not.

In the long run, people who live and work the way that the subject of the Times article does will simply not support the cumbersome procedures and institutions of the bureaucratic state as we know it.

It's no accident that more people are leaving not only states that impose high taxes and burdensome regulations, but also states that are incompetently or corruptly run.  The two go hand in hand.  Corruption is not unknown in red states, but with less government, there are fewer opportunities for graft.

Will there come a point where those left living in blue states will revolt and demand the kind of reforms we see in red states?  Even if they did, the corrupt establishment is so deeply embedded in society that the reformers will probably be stymied.  In Illinois, Governor Bruce Rauner came into office with a mandate to reform the state employee pension system, as well as get the state budget – currently running a multi-billion-dollar deficit – under control.  The Democratic establishment totally refused all of the governor's reform ideas and simply refused to pass a budget.  It's been a year and half since the state was operating under a regular budget, and as a result, the deficit has gotten worse.  Courts dominated by Democrat judges have blocked Rauner's moves to reform the pension system which is a ticking time bomb set to explode on Illinois taxpayers.

Mead talks of the "death" of the blue model.  In Illinois, New York, and elsewhere, that prediction is about to be realized.