Score another one for Wagon Train, the figurative movement away from California by its most productive and creative citizens.

Pop superstar and tennis shoe mogul Kanye West has given all indications of pulling up stakes and setting into less restrictive and less costly Cody, Wyoming.  He's bought two large properties there, and he and his wife, Kim Kardashian, have been reportedly checking the schools for their four children.

According to an interesting eclectic collection of stories and links by the PanAm Post, it's the same reason a lot of Californians are leaving — the one-party blue state's execrable business climate:

During his interview, West made it clear he found California's rigid regulatory structure stifling and a bit irritating. He shared a story about regulators telling him his Star Wars–inspired domes for the homeless — a project West was experimenting with — were not up to code.

"One of the domes was 10 feet too high," said West. "They came and said, 'You got to take it down.'"

West said he was fine with taking it down, but he was angry that officials informed the press about the action.

"Ten feet? On my own 300-acre property?" said West. "And we could have handled it...but [they] wanted to go to the press to let everyone know [they] were tearing down Kanye's domes."

The episode apparently was enough to help convince West, an innovator who speaks glowingly about creativity and the virtue of competition, that California was not the place for his multibillion-dollar brand (Yeezy is owned solely by West).

So in other words, he tries to do something good for the poor people, and the leftist Democrat officials not only interfered with the construction to shut the whole thing down, but, after that, decided to twist the knife by calling the press. 

How's that sound for a business climate?  And imagine what they do to little guys who don't have West's clout or money?

It's a far cry from how things go in Texas, where the officials reputedly visit every incoming business and give giant Texas handshakes and backslaps and ask the newcomers: "How can we help you?"  Wyoming is a conservative state with a very tiny population and has a comparable business climate.  People who bring in new and creative businesses are not treated as targets by the state's leftist regulators.

Score another for the wagon train outward.  West joins thousands of other Californians in fleeing the state.  According to this column in Reason magazine, the state is bleeding people:

Its growth rate last year of 0.47 percent is the slowest in recorded history. The exodus to other states has accelerated. International immigration has slowed. Even births are lower this year than last year. We're a long way from the Gold Rush, when fortune-seekers from around the world tripled California's population in a flash.

Based on the latest U.S. Census data, domestic out-migration to places such as Texas, Arizona and Oregon has outstripped domestic in-migration for eight years in a row. Anecdotal stories abound. One friend, who we met shortly after moving to Fullerton, is now a successful Texas Realtor who specializes in relocating Californians to Dallas.

Another California acquaintance, who now lives in Pennsylvania, helps our state's businesses relocate. At social events, people always talk about the states where they are considering moving. Recent surveys show that 53 percent of Californians are considering moving elsewhere. Such ideas used to be heresy.

Now, more than half the state's residents are thinking about it.  Even the illegals, who have the nation's biggest banquet of freebies on offer in the state, are fleeing. 

The short story here is that when businesses are treated like the enemy, like something to harvest from, by an increasingly ravenous and unaccountable government, the state isn't going to have those people anymore.  They have other places to go.  As in all socialist regimes, people flee.  California is not at all different.  Kanye seems headed for the Rockies, and who can blame him?  He's certainly not the first.