Go east young man! Did Horace Greeley have it wrong?

“Go west, young man” was the advice of Indiana newspaper writer John Soule in 1851, popularized by Horace Greeley.

Now, it may be “Go east, young man, as many Californians look for an exit.

Mike Reilly spent his lifetime chasing the California dream. This year he's going to look for it in Colorado.

With a house purchase near Denver in the works, the 38-year-old engineering contractor plans to move his family 1,200 miles away from his home state's lemon groves, sunshine and beaches.

For him, years of rising taxes, dead-end schools, unchecked illegal immigration and clogged traffic have robbed the Golden State of its allure.

Since the days of the Gold Rush, California has represented the Promised Land. But is there anything left of the California dream?

For many California families last year, tomorrow started somewhere else.

The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008.

California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period — more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y.

In spite of those moving out, the state's population continues to increase overall because of births and immigration, legal and illegal. However, it is the fourth consecutive year that more residents moved from California to other states than arrived in California from within the U.S.

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