Why Are People Moving Out of California? (sfgate.com) 401
A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago analyzed data from a moving company, concluding that 59.4% of the moves in California were out of the state — the second-highest percentage for any state in America (behind only Illinois). And that percentage is growing, reports the Los Angeles Times, since between 2018 and 2019, California had a lower outbound move rate of just 56%.
Citing changes in work-life balance, opportunities for remote work and more people deciding to quit their jobs, the report found that droves of Californians are leaving for states like Texas, Virginia, Washington and Florida. California lost more than 352,000 residents between April 2020 and January 2022, according to California Department of Finance statistics [about 15,476 per month].
San Francisco and Los Angeles rank first and second in the country, respectively, for outbound moves as the cost of living and housing prices continue to balloon and homeowners flee to less expensive cities, according to a report from Redfin released this month. [Los Angeles residents] in particular, are flocking to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Antonio and Dallas. The number of Los Angeles residents leaving the city jumped from around 33,000 in the second quarter of 2021 to nearly 41,000 in the same span of 2022, according to the report.
California has grappled with extremely high housing prices compared with other states, according to USC economics professor Matthew Kahn. Combined with the pandemic and the rise in remote work, privileged households relocated when they had the opportunity. "People want to live here, but an unintended consequence of the state's environmentalism is we're not building enough housing in desirable downtown areas," Kahn said. "That prices out middle-class people to the suburbs [and creates] long commutes. We don't have road pricing to help the traffic congestion, and these headaches add up. So when you create the possibility of work from home, many of these people ... they say 'enough' and they move to a cheaper metropolitan area." Kahn also pointed out that urban crime, a growing unhoused population, public school quality and overall quality of life are driving out residents.
"In New York City, but also in San Francisco, there are all these fights about which kids get into which elite public schools," he said. "The rich are always able to hide in their bubble, but if the middle class looks at this quality of life declining, that's a push factor to leave."
Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather cited a June report that tracked the change in spending power of a homebuyer on a $2,500 monthly budget. While 11.2% of homes in Los Angeles were affordable on that budget, using a 3% interest rate, that amount swelled to about 72% in Houston and about 50% in Phoenix. "It's really an affordability problem," Fairweather said. "California for the longest time has prioritized single-family zoning, which makes it so people stay in their homes longer because their property taxes don't reflect the true value. California is the epicenter of where the housing shortage is so people have no choice but to move elsewhere."
The Times also notes figures from the Public Policy Institute of California showing that the state's population did increase between 2010 and 2020 — but by just 5.8%, "below the national growth rate of 6.8%, and resulting in the loss of a congressional seat in 2021 for the first time in the state's history."
At least part of this seems tied to a sudden curtailing of immigration into California. UCLA economics professor Lee Ohanian points out that immigration had offset California's population outflow over the past two decades, but "Delays in processing migration requests to the U.S. were compounded during the pandemic, resulting in the lowest levels of immigration in decades, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Estimates showed a net increase of 244,000 new immigrants between 2020 and 2021 — roughly half the 477,000 new immigrant residents recorded between 2019 and 2020 and a drastic reduction from more than 1 million reported from 2015 to 2016." The state is also seeing a dwindling middle class, said Ohanian, who cited a report from the National Association of Realtors, outlining that the national median home sales price has reached $416,000, a record high. Meanwhile, California's median home price has topped $800,000. "(California is) at a risk for becoming a state for very, very wealthy people and very, very low earners who receive state and local and federal aid that allows them to be able to live here," Ohanian said. "We should worry about those in the middle who are earning that $78,000 household median income and is, at the end of the day, really struggling, especially if they have interest in buying a home."
San Francisco and Los Angeles rank first and second in the country, respectively, for outbound moves as the cost of living and housing prices continue to balloon and homeowners flee to less expensive cities, according to a report from Redfin released this month. [Los Angeles residents] in particular, are flocking to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Antonio and Dallas. The number of Los Angeles residents leaving the city jumped from around 33,000 in the second quarter of 2021 to nearly 41,000 in the same span of 2022, according to the report.
California has grappled with extremely high housing prices compared with other states, according to USC economics professor Matthew Kahn. Combined with the pandemic and the rise in remote work, privileged households relocated when they had the opportunity. "People want to live here, but an unintended consequence of the state's environmentalism is we're not building enough housing in desirable downtown areas," Kahn said. "That prices out middle-class people to the suburbs [and creates] long commutes. We don't have road pricing to help the traffic congestion, and these headaches add up. So when you create the possibility of work from home, many of these people ... they say 'enough' and they move to a cheaper metropolitan area." Kahn also pointed out that urban crime, a growing unhoused population, public school quality and overall quality of life are driving out residents.
"In New York City, but also in San Francisco, there are all these fights about which kids get into which elite public schools," he said. "The rich are always able to hide in their bubble, but if the middle class looks at this quality of life declining, that's a push factor to leave."
Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather cited a June report that tracked the change in spending power of a homebuyer on a $2,500 monthly budget. While 11.2% of homes in Los Angeles were affordable on that budget, using a 3% interest rate, that amount swelled to about 72% in Houston and about 50% in Phoenix. "It's really an affordability problem," Fairweather said. "California for the longest time has prioritized single-family zoning, which makes it so people stay in their homes longer because their property taxes don't reflect the true value. California is the epicenter of where the housing shortage is so people have no choice but to move elsewhere."
The Times also notes figures from the Public Policy Institute of California showing that the state's population did increase between 2010 and 2020 — but by just 5.8%, "below the national growth rate of 6.8%, and resulting in the loss of a congressional seat in 2021 for the first time in the state's history."
At least part of this seems tied to a sudden curtailing of immigration into California. UCLA economics professor Lee Ohanian points out that immigration had offset California's population outflow over the past two decades, but "Delays in processing migration requests to the U.S. were compounded during the pandemic, resulting in the lowest levels of immigration in decades, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Estimates showed a net increase of 244,000 new immigrants between 2020 and 2021 — roughly half the 477,000 new immigrant residents recorded between 2019 and 2020 and a drastic reduction from more than 1 million reported from 2015 to 2016." The state is also seeing a dwindling middle class, said Ohanian, who cited a report from the National Association of Realtors, outlining that the national median home sales price has reached $416,000, a record high. Meanwhile, California's median home price has topped $800,000. "(California is) at a risk for becoming a state for very, very wealthy people and very, very low earners who receive state and local and federal aid that allows them to be able to live here," Ohanian said. "We should worry about those in the middle who are earning that $78,000 household median income and is, at the end of the day, really struggling, especially if they have interest in buying a home."
Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:5, Insightful)
So summary:
+ Weather.
- Taxes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:4, Interesting)
I know of a retiree that retired in California 3 years ago and then moved to Texas because of the arcane laws and taxes.
Someone I've known since I was a teen who moved from CA to Austin is now getting punched right in the nuts by property taxes. He's saving nothing on taxes whatsoever. He did of course get more property than he would have in CA. In fact, he got a pool. And it's too hot to swim in, because of the weather... even with the heater disabled. This whole idea that CA taxation is severe is dumb. It's just sourced differently.
Leads on moral posturing, not accomplishments (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole idea that CA taxation is severe is dumb. It's just sourced differently.
Bullshit. speaking as a California 50 year resident. Your anecdotal story contradicts your argument, as you say he purchased a larger more luxurious property. Also BS on the pool being too hot. The same thing is happening to the folks fleeing Los Angeles to neighboring Riverside Country, California. Riverside gets up to 100-115 in the summer, the pools are very warm without heating but its still much cooler than the air and it still sucks heat from your body. I have family in Phoenix, Arizona and when it was insanely hot in August the pool still felt good despite being very warm. Again, cooler than air, cooler than body. Similar story in Gulf of California, Mexico where you can add 100% humidity to very high termperatures. Pool still cooler than air and body temperature.
While CA and TX do source things differently TX is still less expensive overall according to friends and family who moved there.
The USC professor tries to hide it but he does evertualy cite reality. He tries to frame it as just part of the transition to a more environmental future, but then he mentions "other" factors in passing as if trying to blow them off as minor. In reality, they are the real reasons: "Kahn also pointed out that urban crime, a growing unhoused population, public school quality and overall quality of life". Quality of life and taxes are the real problems. When quality of life was good the higher taxes were more tolerable, but when you lose quality of life there is no rationale for tolerating the tax and spend BS. So much of it is idiot posturing. Projects do not have to be successful or likely to be so to get passed in the one party rule state government; projects just have to have a moral justification, even if the underlying implementation is nonsense. A moral facade will cover a California politicians ass when a plan has an epic failure. Its OK, he was trying the help with the [dem party buzzphrase here] problem, his heart was in the right place. Until Californians relearn that politicians need a track record of success, not twitter approval, the state is basically f'd.
California leads on rewarding moral posturing, not actual accomplishments. Such behavior is where the downhill slide originates. Again, 50 year California resident. Watched this happen, some of the frogs in the pot are noticing the heat and jumping out.
Re:Leads on moral posturing, not accomplishments (Score:4)
Yeah, San Diego sucks. Please never visit or move here. I beg you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. Everyone knows hat CA is the tax and spend capital of the USA.
What everyone knows is wrong. CA is #9 on the list [cnbc.com], and oh yeah by the way, all the states at the bottom of the list are shitholes.
Re: (Score:3)
> by the way, all the states at the bottom of the list are shitholes.
Which way is the "bottom of the list"?
"States with the highest tax burdens
New York (12.75%)
Hawaii (12.70%)
Maine (11.42%)
Vermont (11.13%)
Minnesota (10.20%)
New Jersey (10.11%)
Connecticut (10.06%)
Rhode Island (9.91%)
California (9.72%)
Illinois (9.70%)
States with the lowest tax burdens
Alaska (5.06%)
Tennessee (5.75%)
Delaware (6.22%)
Wyoming (6.32%)
New Hampshire (6.41%)
Florida (6.64%)
South Dakota (7.12%)
Montana (7.39%)
Alabama (7.41%)
Oklahoma (7
Re:Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:5, Insightful)
California has the 5th largest economy in the world. They must be doing something right regardless of your personal opinion.
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California has the 5th largest economy in the world. They must be doing something right regardless of your personal opinion.
A large part of California's prosperity is physical location. It became the gateway to Asia during the last 50+ years of increasing US engagement with that continent (first primarily with Japan, then with China). The increasing push to onshore supply chains and harden American manufacturing against what seems increasingly like an inevitable schism with China could seriously challenge California's economy. If leaders in California are wise they'll take that threat seriously.
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Dumbest talking point ever.
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You'd be parroting that line if it was Texas. But it's not, is it?
Re:Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:5, Informative)
"California has the 5th largest economy in the world."
Yes, we do. What have we done with it?
We have the largest unsheltered homeless population in the nation. Over 40k just in Los Angeles, more than twice that statewide. NYC has more homeless than we do, but they actually SHELTER their homeless -- maybe 3k-4k on a given night. LA has more unsheltered homeless than EVERY state in the union has total homeless -- except NY. But we beat them in unsheltered homeless by an order of magnitude. We have more deaths from exposure in LA than NYC has -- and NYC has brutal winters. Good job 5th's largest economy in the world!
We have one of the worst poverty rates when the SMP is considered.
We have horrible roads. You can literally see a difference at state line crossings.
We have the highest taxes and we have poor services -- NY has high taxes, but you SEE the services.
Public schools are mostly crap. Nobody points out how much money they funnel in to public schools beyond what's budgeted -- through tax referendums. When you consider those funds, our schools are among the best funded in the nation.
"They must be doing something right regardless of your personal opinion"
Funny what you consider "right".
Re: (Score:3)
Oh yes, teh Evil Left....the ones that gave you clean water and safety standards. THOSE BASTARDS!
You know what else those Evil Liberals gave you?
A standing army, the FDA, the EPA, clean, drinkable water coming from every faucet, 24-hour emergency rooms, fully-staffed hospitals waiting to give you life-saving care, fire departments, child-abuse investigators, controls on what toxic chemicals can be poured into your drinking water, a national highway system, social services, drug treatment centers, Medicaid a
Re:Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:4, Informative)
We have wonderful personal property tax laws. Thanks largely to a Republican passed law from the 70s
Are you high? Why was this "Republican passed law" named "Proposition 13", usually laws named like that are citizen initiatives. From California Property Tax - an Overview [ca.gov]:
Also, in 1978 the "noted Republican" Jerry Brown was Governor, he must have led the charge!
Your alternate opinions are fine, your alternate facts are not.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Also, in 1978 the "noted Republican" Jerry Brown was Governor, he must have led the charge!
Brown led the charge against the proposition. Republicans were unable to get such legislation through the state legislature so they promoted the idea as an initiative. Allowing the public to vote on it. An end run around the Democratic legislature and Democratic Governor. The key supporters and promoters were Republicans.
Your alternate opinions are fine, your alternate facts are not.
No, its more your interpretation and your spin both suck.
Re: Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:5, Insightful)
I've lived in the SF Bay area for 16 years now. I'm not "from Texas and the South".
Prop 13 systematically lowers tax on people with multimillion dollar homes who bought their houses before the inflation of the 1970s, or inherited such houses, with relatively milder effects for people who bought more recently. Meanwhile, the rest of us pay thousands of dollars a month in rent, live with a bunch of roommates, or commute for hours.
The best part about this: Prop 13 homeowners get all the benefits of higher property values (higher cost of housing) but don't need to pay the higher property taxes that would ensue everywhere else. Then, for some reason the homeowners happily vote for city councils that rubber stamp more and denser office development, but the moment anyone starts talking about denser housing that would bring down housing costs -- or at least match the dense office development to keep prices stable -- they turn into entitled NIMBY pricks who whine about the "character of the community" and fight tooth and nail, bringing up issues like "burrowing owls" that mysteriously aren't a problem when bulldozing vast amounts of dirt to make a baseball diamond park in the same neighborhood.
Re: Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:4, Insightful)
Good to know, you think lower income people should travel 60 miles (not minutes) to and then again from work each day to earn the wages they can get which may be able to afford something much further away, but discounting the value of their time to them and their families.
Clearly they should be thankful for the opportunities your enlightened attitudes bring them. Only the rich or well paid should be able to live near where they work.
Thank you for acknowledging your elitism. Let the peasants eat cake you say.
Re: (Score:3)
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Guess he figured he might as well enjoy it for a while. But yeah, uncovered outdoor pools are a big fail. He's throwing away water, and at these temps, also just having to throw chlorine into it daily. Then again, agricultural evaporation in Texas makes all the pools put together fairly irrelevant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's not enough water in LA, so move to Phoenix or Las Vegas?
Anybody who'd move to Phoenix or Vegas from anywhere is not thinking about water. Or at least not thinking sanely.
Re: Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:5, Informative)
Actually living in Phoenix nearly all my life, I'm pretty well aware of the water situation, and we've actually got it managed pretty well. Believe it or not, our water table has actually increased in recent years while the rest of the southwest has experienced water shortages.
There are a few wasteful spots, namely in the form of some very old neighborhoods still using irrigation in their back yards, but so few of them still do that that it's not a big deal. The main concerns are farming and golf courses.
Either way, unlike most of the southwest, no major areas in Arizona have had to enact any drastic measures for water conservation.
Poorly thought out farming and environmentalism (Score:3)
... but you've gotta eat... especially if California has to scale back farming because it doesn't have the water ...
California farming is poorly managed. The water could be more efficiently used, but there are also some crops that are extremely wasteful of water. Avocado and almonds should probably be grown elsewhere.
And there there is diverting water to re-establish endangered fish populations. An effort that has been going on for multiple decades and fisherman still don't see any of these formerly native fish. Their gone, they are not coming back.
Re:Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:5, Funny)
Awesome! Now I just need "taxes", "woke", or "illegal immigration" to complete my Conservative Buzzword Bingo card.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Insufficient water supply and too many fires (Score:5, Informative)
That depends on what industry you work in. If you're in tech, yeah, you'll probably be able to live ok, if you're say, a teacher at a public school. Good luck to you.
Posts like yours really do show the kind of bubble so many live in.
Back when I was in Seattle, I felt sorry for new hires who had to have a roommate to be able to live in a lot of places there, meanwhile I was lucky enough to buy a house at the bottom of the market and live ok... but I knew plenty who couldn't afford to live near where they worked. Where do you think people serving coffee or food at your office or on your way there are going to live? Don't you stop to consider how the cost of living there, which you are immune to, might affect others?
Same goes for this current inflation... I know I make a very good living, and live in a very low-cost area, so I've plenty of wiggle room... and I am very lucky to be in that situation, though unlike you, I know that countless others, doubly so in a place like California don't have that same leeway.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd sure rather vote for a Nazi than a progressive.
Well there's the problem- you're a malignant asshole.
Re:Two types of people (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that's a pretty fair statement for the SF, LA, and SD areas. I personally can't figure out why somebody with a sub 100k income would want to live in one of these areas. You can do so much better elsewhere.
Re: (Score:3)
Why? Because the article failed to ask the moving companies how much it costs to move. You're looking at like 20K to move a small household from CA to TX, e.g., if not more, not to mention all the cost of trips to find new housing.
Maybe remote work? (Score:2)
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They could stay in California and move the state line as this guy has suggested. [youtube.com] :P
It was funny when people in Idaho balked at the idea after learning that the state would have pay $10-15B to Oregon for state property and the border shift would require a 12-hour (round trip drive to Oregon to buy weed (legal in OR, illegal in ID) instead of the (like, can't remember) 30-minute drive now.
Re:Maybe remote work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe remote work? (Score:4, Insightful)
Too (Score:3)
And too expensive.
Re:Too (Score:4, Interesting)
People leaving because of the fires and the extreme heat are climate refugees. Granted they might be quite wealthy ones, with insurance money in hand, but they are still being forced to migrate due to climate change.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
No their not. Nobody is leaving California because of the climate. People are leaving because of high taxes, failing cities, high crime, and improper management.
Re:Too (Score:4, Interesting)
Strikes me as a conservative fantasy, because conservatives hate that California, one of the most progressive and liberal states, is also the richest and used to be very attractive.
The first result on Google suggests that crime was much worse in the late 70s and early 80s, and California was pretty popular back then: https://www.ppic.org/publicati... [ppic.org]
People leaving say that it's due to property prices, and it seems to have sped up as remote work becomes more common. Seems very unlikely that that isn't a major factor. Work is usually the thing that draws people to a place, or at least it was before the great remote working revolution.
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Yeah, no. Nobody is leaving Calif because of climate change, period. There is really no mystery why people are leaving Calif in droves. It is because of all the reasons mentioned.
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Being in California instead of Arizona means roughly $7,800 additional taxes every year in my case. The SALT cap makes it even worse.
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Strikes me as a conservative fantasy, because conservatives hate that California, one of the most progressive and liberal states, is also the richest and used to be very attractive. The first result on Google suggests that crime was much worse in the late 70s and early 80s, and California was pretty popular back then
Its not crime states per se, its a decline in the quality of life. Crime, is just one factor. And today's crime is more likely to occur in wealthier areas which freaks out people with the resources to move. Whether in state or out of state. In short, its more complicated than a number in isolation suggests. People are upset that we seem to be returning to the radical inspired violence of the 1960s/70s. I am not talking large protests, I am talking weatherman level assassinations, bombings, etc. We are creep
Too crowded, obviously... (Score:3)
That, and the business acceptance of telecommuting, which is decreasing the benefit of everyone physically moving into an office. The number of telecommute friendly LinkedIn jobs for engineers is absolutely astounding these days. Even if they offer 5% to 10% less to move to the home office, just the lack of aggravation and price differential is often not worth it.
All in all, this is probably a good thing. We can't have all the people who actually know how to grow a modern business stuck in a tiny handful of coastal states, while the rest of the country descends back into gilded age exploitation and modern day share-cropping. Political power in the US unfortunately has an "ownership of land" aspect to it, which is holding the US back, as disproportionate power is vested in vast wilderness and the uneducated people who live there..
Re: Too crowded, obviously... (Score:2)
California and New York are 60 million people. Texas and Florida are 50 million. That is a third of the country living in four states. Clearly there has been some bias in distribution of people. Remote work could be a great help in releasing some market pressure vi am taking a pay cut this year in a gamble I hope works out.
Re: (Score:2)
The only downside is if you want WANT to move and they don't want to sponsor your visa because you can just work remotely.
The good old days when we had freedom of movement...
Re:Too crowded, obviously... (Score:5, Insightful)
"disproportionate power is vested in vast wilderness and the uneducated people who live there.."
You have illustrated the problem, but not in the way you think. Why do you think people who live in the country are uneducated? I live in the country and I have a Doctorate in engineering and a second bachelors in chemistry. The high school graduation rate is 90% or better even in an area where there are jobs for dropouts. (And there is no fighting about which school you are going to because their is only one, it's very egalitarian.)
You have confused overspecialized with intelligence. Living in the country you have to know how to do many things reasonably well as opposed to one thing very well and hiring out the rest.
Drop the snooty attitude and you might find more in common with the country folk than you think. Or at least remember what that anthropology class I took as part of the core curriculum, "a societies ethics and culture reflect its environment."
Or you can fan the flames like this idiot,
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
There are probably as many reasons (Score:3)
As there are people moving. Maybe they got a job somewhere else, maybe they felt like a change, maybe they needed to take care of an elderly family member, maybe it's one of a million other possibilities.
Try renting a U-Haul (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd heard there were so many people moving out of California that U-Haul ran out of trucks. They had to pay people to drive trucks in from out of state, since nobody was moving in.
https://www.10news.com/news/fa... [10news.com]
Re: (Score:2)
All those U-Haul trucks are apparently...in Texas!
https://www.chron.com/news/hou... [chron.com]
Too Many People .(period) (Score:2)
It's too nice so it becomes too crowded and too much demand drives up prices. Too many influential rich shove costs below them (a national problem.)
Too conservative. Actually. They won't fix known transit, housing, water, problems which have solutions but the "liberal" population opposes changes in their own backyard and the costs for those transitions. NIMBY infects so called liberals too; it's just more hypocritical for them. Nobody wants any sacrifice that involves them. Selfishness is universally the
the economic and social construct (Score:2)
Grab bag of leftie interpretations (Score:2)
California's problems are caused by too much single family homes? Texas and Florida are building giant subdivisions of single-family homes right now. A buddy of mine just moved into his. In places like Massachusetts, where the prevailing attitude is that if it's not a large multiunit apartment building, it's practically not allowed to be built, so no one tries, only exists in some parts of the country...the ones with the highest home prices.
Immigration processing delays are causing problems for California?
Not just LA and SF... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
San Francisco for some reason is considered to be "Northern California". Yet when you look at a map you will see quite clearly that SF is only just above about half-way up the coastline.
Nope. The closest natural feature to the actual midpoint of the coastline is the Monterey Bay.
Re: (Score:2)
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If it's above the middle
It's in the North half
HTH, HAND
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I grew up in California, but a month ago visited Eureka for the first time, to hike the redwoods. Did you know that the big fishing crop up there right now is...hagfish? The grossest creature the ocean has to offer now has a number of industrial uses and is considered a delicacy in Asia.
Zoning and NIMBYs (Score:5, Interesting)
Zoning restrictions and NIMBY opposition make it impossible to build a significant amount of new housing in California cities. This means that the number of housing units is roughly fixed, which means that the population is roughly fixed. Whenever richer people move in, prices rise which forces poorer people to move out, so that the constant population is maintained.
But it's actually worse than that. The incredibly high housing prices in California nowadays means that few young people can afford to buy. Instead, ownership is concentrated among the old people who bought decades ago, while young families move to states where they can afford to buy homes. This means that over time, more and more housing units are occupied by one or two old people, while young families with 3 or 4 or 5 members are forced out of the state. With a constant number of housing units and a decreasing number of people per household, the overall population shrinks.
Re: (Score:3)
Sometimes I wonder where this is going for gen Z.
They either can't afford a house so rent, or move somewhere cheaper. But the same thing will happen if they move, their kids won't be able to afford anything there either. The amount of usable land will probably shrink due to climate change too, although perhaps that's less of an issue in the US.
The Boomers will leave money to their kids, Gen X. Gen X will leave a lot less to their kids, Millennials. Millennials will spend it all paying off their own mortgage
Re:Zoning and NIMBYs (Score:4, Funny)
To quote a German comedian, we're living a life most of our ancestors, and our descendants, are envious of.
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Millennials will spend it all paying off their own mortgages
That or student loans. A good chunk of us wish we had mortgages to pay. But as the years go on, it's increasingly likely that chunk never will. Many of them are in their 30s. There's sky high inflation on everything, a housing market that is filled to bursting with venture captial, and a recession incoming. If it plays out like 2008, it will be another decade before most people without an all cash offer can get decent financing for houses again. That means the chunk without a house today, will be trying to
It's a housing shortage (Score:5, Interesting)
This is getting to be a problem in most places, but it's most acute in California because it's a perfect storm. We've got loss of homes from fires, nimbyism preventing building new homes, absurd permit costs driving up the cost of building new starter homes for small families, airbnbs everywhere sucking up the available rentals, vacation homes for the wealthy, and investment homes for foreigners.
All of these are factors elsewhere too, but they're major here.
Why live in California (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But then you'd have to live in Seattle.
People focus on the wrong reasons (Score:3)
California is actually a pretty nice place. I left a few years ago and do miss some things.
But they need to deal with housing!. Without a comprehensive, major push to add housing (along with the amenities necessary for densification) they cannot manage homelessness, marginalization of low income people, or even the flight of the rich. All of the bad things that happen in the state really go back to this.
Sure, tax reform would be good, as well as reducing the state budget, but those are not the deal killers. They need a good long-term strategic plan.
The biggest problem (Score:2)
I tried (Score:2)
I went there for work, stayed there 10 years, left there because I couldn't find work after a layoff, and was paying $3k/month in rent.
Its just that simple.
Clueless politicians (Score:2)
immigration had offset California's population outflow over the past two decades, but "Delays in processing migration requests to the U.S. were compounded during the pandemic ..."
So, two decades (at least) of wallpapering over the problems?
Yogi Berra (Score:2)
"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
-Yogi Berra
Normalization of destructive behavior (Score:2)
Too fucking expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
And the laws. Everywhere you go is a sign required by a proposition that there are cancer causing chemicals here. Gun laws are an absolute joke, they restrict gun ownership while doing nothing to solve gun violence. Gavin Newsome's idea of leadership is seeing which way the crowd is going, then getting in front of it. Never been a business owner but I know people who are, all they do is bitch about the red tape.
The homeless. This is a problem caused by A) the cost of housing; and B) the weather. By B I mean homeless folks from Chicago et al scrounge their pennies for a bus ticket so they can be homeless in San Diego.
I'm 64, bought a condo in '86, traded it for a house in '96, lost that in a divorce in '09, and have been renting ever since with no hope of owning anything again. My mortgage payment for a 2400 sq foot house with a pool in a nice neighborhood was about $950/month. My rent for a 500 sq foot apt is $1650. I'm looking to leave the state.
Question? I've lived in San Diego for almost 60 years and want to leave. Want low taxes for retirees, no major snow (1-2" a couple times a year is fine, 12" overnight is not), I'd like to buy a couple acres on a retiree's income, don't need city amenities (don't do concerts nor sporting events anymore, Amazon takes care of the rest). Where go?
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Taxes are amongst the highest in the nation
They only just make the top 10. Incidentally it's a top 10 list of nice places with good infrastructure and desirable places to live, unlike the bottom 10 which are all shithole states which are falling apart.
Re:Too fucking expensive (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, Prop 13 removes the downside that other states have of rising housing costs (the downside being higher property taxes) so it gives NIMBYs that much more power to do all they can to prevent more housing from getting built and diluting their investment [archive.org].
And as home values rise, it prices low income people out of California, people who used to teach our children and enforce our laws and repair our potholes. So it's costing cities more and more to hire and maintain those employees, but thanks to Prop 13, as home values rise, property tax revenue hardly budges up. Costs go up but tax revenue does not.
So of course Prop 13 is to blame for revenue shortages.
Here [reddit.com] is a nice discussion of the arguments for Prop 13.
Too many damn people (Score:2)
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Home prices (Score:2)
Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather cited a June report that tracked the change in spending power of a homebuyer on a $2,500 monthly budget. While 11.2% of homes in Los Angeles were affordable on that budget, using a 3% interest rate, that amount swelled to about 72% in Houston and about 50% in Phoenix.
This just shows how crazy California home prices are. I have a friend in Phoenix. For those who don't know, Phoenix currently is one of the most overpriced housing markets in the country at present. So when Phoenix looks like a good deal to California homeowners, that speaks volumes about how insanely high the prices in California are.
Also, I suspect a large number of middle class people are selling their crap shacks in California for half a million or more and using the funds to buy McMansions
The Reason (Score:2)
The main reason is that they can sell their 2-bedroom, 1.5 bath, 1200 sq ft bungalow for 3 million dollars and move to a slew of other states where for $500K ~ $1M they can buy a 3000 sq ft home with property. And everything usually costs less in those other states.
California is a great place in many, many respects, but its success has also birthed some of its biggest problems.
Iâ(TM)m seriously considering moving back to (Score:3)
People complain about taxes but in reality itâ(TM)s not all that different from other states, including the one I currently live in. The nominal rate is higher but there are a lot more deductions available.
The UC schools are hard to beat in terms of quality and since I now have a daughter of reproductive age, Iâ(TM)m concerned about her rights as a woman. Yes, we could afford to fly her to CA if that became necessary.
Salaries are a lot higher there for people in tech and there are a lot more opportunities available across the board.
There are nice places to live in the East Bay of SF, the coast north of San Diego, and places like Monrovia in LA.
So yeah, weâ(TM)re seriously considering moving back.
50 years in California, I just want out... (Score:3)
Typing one handed, got 3 pins holding together bones in the left, so I gotta keep it short ans to the point I guess...
I see a lot of reasons mentioned here, except for one. People in New York used to make fun of how amicable Californians are. It's just not that way anymore. It's just a huge rat race in any given major city. In short, people aren't nice here anymore.
All the reasons mentioned in the above comments contribute to this. A few times in the last few years I did roadtrips through the little lazy seaside towns in Oregon. Didn't matter if I ate fast food, or a more formal sit down, people were nice. Strangers actually would have conversations with you. Wait staff was freindly. California used to be like this, but now so many people are caught up in one upsmanship on tiktok or the gram, they can't even take 30 minutes to look up from thier phones.
Re:Gavin Newsom (Score:4, Informative)
Florida has a much higher violent crime and murder rate than California. The chance of being murdered in Florida is 20% higher than in California.
Reference: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/press... [cdc.gov]
Re:Gavin Newsom (Score:4, Informative)
Strange, all the "any fool can be a shooter" states have a much higher murder rate than the "you can shoot back if you have a handgun license" states.
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Got any proof or actual evidence that homicides are not being recorded? You might be able to get away with passing speculation off as facts to a conservative audience but not everyone on here is that.
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Possibly the census takers couldn't walk through Compton without getting mugged in broad daylight. Hard to count people that way.
Re:Gavin Newsom (Score:5, Interesting)
That is a particularly shocking difference given that California has dramatically larger cities than Florida does https://www.florida-demographi... [florida-demographics.com] , https://www.california-demogra... [california...aphics.com] . A larger urban population should make California more crime prone overall.
Re:Gavin Newsom (Score:4)
Re:Gavin Newsom (Score:4, Insightful)
People too often make the mistake of looking at states rather than population centers when it comes to violent crime. Population centers themselves tend to have a more cohesive culture, politics, standards, laws, etc, than states do. This is especially important when they span more than one state. Try something like this:
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
Personally I can think of a lot more cities in Florida that I'd rather be than cities in California.
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Ideology trumps reality every time I'm afraid. Neither the far right or the far left let facts get in the way of their beliefs.
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California's homicide rate is less than Florida's and far below many of your deep red states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, and South Carolina. Why don't you complain about the leadership in those states? If your system was so awesome those states would be doing a lot better or at least equal to California. Instead, just like your conservative fascist model country Russia, they have high homicide rates.
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The nice thing about there being 50 states is that we each get to pick the one we like and avoid the ones that we think are hell on earth.
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Florida. It's a state primarily made up of elderly people, yet the murder rate is still 30% higher than California's... who'd want to move there?
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On the other hand, I live in Florida, and I know you're wrong in general.
A lot of my new neighbors are either from California or from NY/NJ.
More are from NY/NJ, but the number from California is still noticeable.
The raw numbers aren't huge (only about 30,000 Californians last year), but the ones who move here tend to be higher-paid professionals who are surprised at how nice of a house you can get for half as much money as in CA.
Re:Don't fuck my state up (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, could say the same for anyone moving from a rural area to a suburban area, in ANY state. Yet they continue to do so. Wish those people from fucked up areas kept to their areas and unfucked them, instead they move to successfull areas and continue to vote for the policies that keeps their former residence a shithole.
Or maybe, you just have to learn to live with people of different beliefs? I know that's tough for a lot of people nowadays, but just get used to it. I certainly have.
You will just have to tolerate Californians' moving in and changing things, just as people moved into California and changed it.
And maybe this diffusion will defuse some of the tensions in the country, since half the problem is people living in echo chambers. I see people moving between states, forcing everyone involved to get a new perspective, a good thing.
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This [etsystatic.com].
Re:Insanely High taxes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Have you been? (Score:4, Informative)
Tolerance for homeless encampments goes hand in hand with median house prices of 800,000. Most people can't afford a house, so demand for rentals is high. 80% of the land in SoCal zoned residential forbids any multi-family dwellings, so supply of rentals is low.
High demand plus low supply equals high prices, and when it's high prices for *housing* that equals an intractable homeless problem. If you had a household income in the first quartile for the city of Los Angeles, using the 30% of income rule of thumb means you could afford to pay around $500/month. A median 1BR apartment is $1600.
This is a case where government regulations prevent the market from meeting the *basic* needs of a large number of citizens. This is a radical idea, but if California eliminated single family only zoning, rent costs would come down.
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We did just as you suggested but it wasn't that long ago. It will definitely add housing but will also really upset all the current residents. Tearing down a single family home and putting in a 2/3/4 unit structure is doable but often times there is no extra parking for anyone. Many families have two cars.
I already know of two such structures going up in two different San Diego neighborhoods and I'm sure there are many more I'm unaware of. People are crying but what's done is done.
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If you took 5 minutes to research any of those topics, you'd find that reality isn't the same as what you hear on conservative media.
Like, go to any sufficiently large city, in any state, and you'll be able to find litter. That includes drug needles, people shitting on the street, homeless people... you name it. It's not like it's completely unique to California.
Of course CA school boards seem insane if you haven't gotten the memo that the Civil War is over, think American society peaked in the 1950s, black
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PG&E doesn't work for shit and is making excessive profit specifically because it was deregulated. The CPUC is a shitty joke that does nothing to stop PG&E from murdering people for profit.
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Nothing wrong with California that letting them have their independence, then cutting off all the water they steal from the surrounding states won't solve.
Nothing wrong with cutting off the water to California, so long as you don't mind 40% of the food we eat in the USA being produced in other states with inferior weather, producing an inferior and narrower range of produce. I live here, so I'll still be eating fruit and veg out of season. Enjoy your root crops.