When everyone moves to TN, or wherever they think things are better, they soon find the road and public water and sewer and every other public infrastructure is too small, and too outdated to accommodate all the new habitants and the current federal requirements, so they will be forced to bring everything up to standards they probably haven't been meeting for the last 20 years, let alone the modern government improved standards. Once you get the government involved with public improvements, everything gets costly. The states don't have the money required to meet the new needs, so guess how they have to pay to cover those needs? Yep, they borrow based on future estimated state income levels, and the only way they can do that is to somehow show the state population is increasing, or there will be an increase in the state taxes and fees.

Lets use the town I live in. We have had a public water utility for well over 100 years. When the system was originally designed, it was expected to support a city of around 5,000-6,000 people. Provisions were built into the project to continue the system upkeep.
Somewhere around 1950, the city exceeded the 6,000 population, but there was money in the fund to add the needed capacity, so no fees were increased. Everyone was happy. Somewhere around the early 70s the population exceeded 25,000, so the system was upgraded again, but this time they floated a bond to pay for the improvements, and make a few repairs to the original system. By this time, the built in system up keep funds were pretty well gone, but it was OK because we now had a bond to perform some upkeep, and to fund the enlarged capacity. The bond hurt a little, but it had an expiration date, so it wasn't too bad.
Somewhere around 2000 the original system was beginning to fail. It had actually exceeded the original life expectancy, but there were no funds available to repair the system. Another bond, but this one was to replace some of the oldest parts of the original system. They saved a fortune by replacing the part they did with material with a 50 year life expectancy instead of the 100 year life expectancy like the original stuff was.
Somewhere around 2010, the fed came in and determined the water & sewer system was not up to the new and improved standards laid out be the fed gov. A large portion of the system needed to be replaced immediately. Of course there are no funds to do such a thing, so those in power were forced to get another bond to pay for the ned fed required system. They also thought they should add a fund to provide future system replacements. Then to add insult, the decided to add another fee to cover the cost of repair for the now 20 year old system installed in 2000. The average water bill in our town went from around $25/month to a minimum of $75 a month. The cost of the new fed enforced system was in the millions, and its all on a bond based on future population expectations, but the problem is, they expected the population to grow, but it is shrinking at an alarming rate. They are likely going to have to ask for another bond to pay additional interest on the current bond, because there isn't enough "extra" money in the city budget to cover the shortcoming on the original bond issue.

The circle goes around and around. Gene