Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

lao.ca.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 230 posts

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#101

Post by lern_too_spel »

hindsightbias wrote: post #94
Casseres wrote: post #14

Native Texan here. I and many other Texans I know welcome newcomers with open arms. We all just have one message though: Please do not turn Texas into the places y'all are leaving. There's a reason y'all are leaving after all. EDIT: Newcomers: We generally don't care what anyone does or thinks, we only care when people try to force us to conform to their beliefs, including what to do with our money, eg) raising taxes…

Ex-native here. TX isn't anything like what it was before the Bible Belt migrated in and took over the suburbs/electorate. Too bad Texas is too progressive to have a Prop 13 - I can't go back anywhere in TX w/o people whinging about their property taxes or toll road fees.

Prop 13 is what ruined California. Not only did it institute rent control for property owners with all its associated problems, but it also tied the hands of legislators for funding government programs, directly leading to the initiative-based rigid monstrosity of a state budget California suffers from today.

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#102

Post by davidw »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #96
davidw wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd help fix it, but California's dug itself into such a deep hole that it'll take a while to fix it even with good measures like that one. The statistic that always amazes me is how Tokyo built more housing than the entire state of California in 2014. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-... If you (as in the generic you, not the comment I'm responding to) live in CA, and care about this stuf…

Tokyo is huge though, it's population is about 1/3 that of the whole of California. So we are talking about a ratio of only 3+ in housing built per capita. Significant for sure, but hardly bizzare.

That an entire huge state cannot compete with an already somewhat dense city is mind boggling to me.

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#103

Post by dragonwriter »

gumby wrote: post #65
commandlinefan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine if California reverses course and enacts conservative-friendly policies - and turns into a red state.

By and large califirnia is a red state: outside the major urban areas the state is mostly quote red; some urban areas (e.g. Orange county) are also quite red and those populations send conservatives to congress. But because the majority of the population do live in major urban areas you see the state legislature about 70/30 D/R and the statewide offices tend to go to the majority as well. But within recent memory the…

> By and large califirnia is a red state: outside the major urban areas the state is mostly

...unpopulated.

Seriously, compare the Bay Area + LA metro + San Diego Metro population to the state population.

Sure, most of the land area is Republican-majority, but...

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#105

Post by krausejj »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #96
davidw wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd help fix it, but California's dug itself into such a deep hole that it'll take a while to fix it even with good measures like that one. The statistic that always amazes me is how Tokyo built more housing than the entire state of California in 2014. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-... If you (as in the generic you, not the comment I'm responding to) live in CA, and care about this stuf…

Tokyo is huge though, it's population is about 1/3 that of the whole of California. So we are talking about a ratio of only 3+ in housing built per capita. Significant for sure, but hardly bizzare.

i got so deep here, i went and looked at US Census Building Permit data for MSAs: https://standupcalifornia.com/peers

This is all primary research. The most shocking piece was that cities like Sacramento are permitting half as much housing per capita as peer cities like Seattle. Land is not the issue—this is a policy failure.

But, we can fix it :)

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#106

Post by prostoalex »

krausejj wrote: post #15

this is related to an article i just submitted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16478780 it costs too much to live here because of zoning. zoning is largely driven by local governments, dominated by homeowners who benefit when prices rise. but california might fix it with sb-827, which would prevent local governments from banning density near transit hubs. california builds https://standupcalifornia.com (this is…

> it costs too much to live here because of zoning

I am somewhat skeptical of a large complex problem having an easy, magical, fix-all solution.

LA construction (downtown area specifically, which is close to transit and zoned for pretty much anything) is booming https://la.curbed.com/2017/1/23/14364926/cranes-los-angeles-... but the dream of the dirt-cheap units remains a pie in the sky http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/when-it-comes-to-affordab...

And it's not because developers dislike money.

1) Construction labor is expensive in California, a good number of occupations (electricians, etc.) are unionized, which leaves little alternative.

2) Code compliance is expensive, and not just in some bureaucratic-red-tape way. Coastal California is on a fault line, so there are earthquake safety regulations, fire code requirements, etc. Folks from Millennium Tower in SF probably wish there were more regulations as far as ground inspections and surveys.

3) Parking spaces are expensive to build and are still required by the building codes. As millennials mature, public transit use is declining and car ownership is on the rise https://www.scpr.org/news/2018/01/31/80354/transit-ridership...

4) Land near transit hubs is not cheap.

5) Modern construction materials are not getting cheaper.

6) Unless you're a giant construction firm, there are waiting times associated with heavy equipment, such as building cranes, bulldozers, excavators, etc. as it's typically leased and it might be contracted out to another job.

Unless you are able to procure a major cost advantage on building materials, labor costs or skirt a few regulations in the building code and get away with it, you're unlikely to end up with very cheap housing in a major city.

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#107

Post by dragonwriter »

phyzome wrote: post #59
randyrand wrote: post #9

Democratic states moving into California and Californians mostly leaving for conservative states. Interesting. There are multiple ways to interpret though.

Don't forget that a lot of those conservative states are large, and liberal states small. The data is not normalized.

New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, and Florida are small now?

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#108

Post by hkmurakami »

drdeadringer wrote: post #75
meddlepal wrote: post #46

I'm sure there is a $$$ number that would convince me to move to California, but I'm not sure there are many companies willing to pay it and I would be super worried the entire time I was there about possible unemployment. I feel like there is going to be a blood bath in the Bay Area if we're actually in a bubble and it bursts. The next five to ten years should be an interesting ride.

Let's say we're in a bubble and it bursts. How would it be different from The Great Recession?

One difference is that with a industry/geography isolated crash, we are unlikely to get the kind of federal stimulus support that we saw in response to the Great Recession.

Re: California Losing Residents via Domestic Migration

#109

Post by AnimalMuppet »

drdeadringer wrote: post #75
meddlepal wrote: post #46

I'm sure there is a $$$ number that would convince me to move to California, but I'm not sure there are many companies willing to pay it and I would be super worried the entire time I was there about possible unemployment. I feel like there is going to be a blood bath in the Bay Area if we're actually in a bubble and it bursts. The next five to ten years should be an interesting ride.

Let's say we're in a bubble and it bursts. How would it be different from The Great Recession?

From a near-miss in my own life: A bubble that bursts may look a lot like The Great Recession. A bubble that bursts just after you move to a new city, where you don't have any professional track record? That's worse. A bubble that bursts harder in the new city than in the one you came from? I'd think hard before I signed up for that...
Post reply on HN