In bright pink swooping picture postcard font, the billboard reads,

wish you were here in letters three feet high. Behind the writing, palm trees sway against a blue sky above a bluer ocean.

And gentle surf breaks on golden sand.

Parked on that sand is a gleaming black and white police cruiser.

And below it, another slogan, this one, all caps. We're hiring.

The campaign was the brainchild of Fort Lauderdale Police Department,

which, like many across the country, has been struggling to recruit and retain officers.

Since the pandemic, hundreds of thousands more people have relocated Florida,

and those communities need policing.

Governor Ronda Santas would even like to sweep in the deal with the $5,000 signing on bonus.

These unconventional job ads were spotted late last year as far from Florida's sunny southeast

as a highway in Chicago, and New York's Times Square.

Their message is clear.

Leave your cold northern reaches and communities hostile to law enforcement,

because Florida is getting life right.

And, the ad suggests, the rest of America could do worse than try to be more like Florida too.

I'm John Prado, and this is Chex and Balance from the Economist.

Each week, we take one big theme shaping American politics and explore it in depth.

Today, what should America learn from the popularity of the sunshine state?

Florida was once dismissed as peripheral and appendage to continental America,

notable for retirees in golf carts and strange crimes involving alligators.

No longer, it's now the number one destination for American and foreign movers

...