Speaking of embarrassing signs of blue state decline, now even Hollywood may be leaving L.A.  Its future as the global center for show business is one of the big issues in the Los Angeles mayor’s election next Tuesday.

“Hollywood is dead,” proclaims Mark Geragos, the publisher of Los Angeles magazine. He rails against how high production costs, featherbedding unions and city-led restrictions on location shooting have driven jobs away. The number of on-location shoot days in LA has fallen from 37,000 in 2022 to under 20,000 in 2025, a drop of over 40%. Production has shifted to Georgia, Texas, Nashville, Great Britain and Canada where labor is cheaper, tax credits are plentiful and union rules less stringent.

Actor Gary Sinise, famous for his role as Lt. Dan in “Forrest Gump,” is a symbol of the shift. After decades in Hollywood he moved to Nashville in 2019. He told Fox News that he asked himself:

Do I want to spend all the money here in California paying these big prices for gas and property taxes and all the different things? They’ve got a lot of resources in California and I just don’t know what they’re doing. If I was still in California and not working, that money would be moving a lot faster out the door than it is right now. So I wanted to save money and prepare for the future. I don’t want to give it all to California and property taxes. I’d rather give it to my kids later on.