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Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

latimes.com

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Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#211

Post by rayiner »

dehrmann wrote: post #174
jb775 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I genuinely have no clue where the high taxes go. I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism, yet... Have you ever stopped to seriously consider if this is the realistic end result of liberalism? This is a very common trend for major cities that have been under liberal control for decades (Philly, Baltimore, Chicago, etc). And yet somehow the politicians convince the population that this…

While I agree, the recent Texas power outage is the result of a free-market system for energy. California hasn't done well with energy either, but for different reasons. My point is that funny things happen when markets fail and when empathy-driven policy goes too far.

You’re uninformed about the situation in Texas. Electricity is regulated in Texas more of less the same way as its regulated everywhere else: regulated monopolies control the distribution grid, and power is generated in regulated markets and fed into the grid. That basic mechanism is used not only in the US, but Europe too: https://fsr.eui.eu/electricity-markets-in-the-eu/ (“Please note that while in the EU electricity markets have been deregulated, other regulatory models can be in place in other parts of the world.”). The problem in Texas wasn’t free market for energy specifically, but failure on the part of ERCOT (a quasi-regulatory body that oversees the grid) to impose appropriate reliability requirements in the face of unpredictable climate events.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#212

Post by young_unixer »

chrisseaton wrote: post #44
Moodles wrote: post #6

I'm leaving San Francisco next month also. I just see no reason to continue living here. The weather is nice in California, but the city is so mismanaged it's a joke. The homelessness has been an issue for decades now and local politicians always talk about it, but what do they actually do to help? I genuinely have no clue where the high taxes go. I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism…

> I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism, yet in Tenderloin every day for decades tech bros step over needles and homeless people on their way to make their 200k a year Why's that ironic? Isn't that exactly liberalism? Accepting and tolerating different people behaving in different ways and not forcing them to change? Individual rights and responsibilities, limited government intervent…

That's a lost battle. Liberal in the US means almost the complete opposite of the original definition.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#213

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rsj_hn wrote: post #210
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California still was at positive population increase before the pandemic because of foreign immigration. Also, Texas had more people than California just back in 1940, it isn’t weird that it’s huge growth over the last 80 years has come to an end.

I would say a population decline for any big state is a bit unusual, no?

Nope. Look at New York. Anyways, if you want to see the reality, do a Google for “California population”, it will include Florida and Texas in a graph that goes back to 1920.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#214

Post by TeeMassive »

I don't understand the framing of the article when they say

> The number of people leaving California typically tracks with the amount entering the state. But the findings show that wasn’t the case in the fourth quarter of 2020, when 267,000 people left the state and only 128,000 entered.

So that's 130k people leaving for one year (not a quarter like the way it's phrased, I've looked up the statistics and 130k a year makes more sense). And the negative growth of the state's population began before the pandemic. I'm failing to see how losing 0.3% of your population is not the beginning of an exodus?

https://www.macrotrends.net/states/california/population

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#215

Post by jariel »

jeffbee wrote: post #197
jariel wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Allowing new housing to be built to satisfy demand." No they don't. Switzerland is one of the most conservative places on Earth, at least culturally, and they have super strict rules on what you can build. The issue has little to do with NIMBYISM really. SF is a relatively popular destination, it's going to be really, really hard to keep people on the very bottom end of the scale in housing there. Vancouver 'built b…

To say that Vancouver built built built requires an ignorance of historical building rates. Vancouver, like the American west coast cities, severely underbuilt for decades and only recently returned to historical average rate of home building, which does not help address the accumulated deficit. For example in 2009 the whole city only built 9000 new homes, which is 1/3rd the average historical per-capita rate.

"severely underbuilt for decades "

First - there is no such thing as 'under built'.

A community can house as many people as it houses - and that's that.

There can be an 'amount of new development relative to other places' - but not without a massive dose of 'housing ideology' can you say how much is over or under.

Second, the notion that 'there was less building for decades and then a lot of building, but not enough to catch up' doesn't really make sense, because even with an ideological view of 'how much is correct' there can be no such thing as 'pent up unfulfilled demand from previous building'. There are not a bunch of people living in Calgary or Seattle 'waiting' for the opportunity if only affordability was there.

Plenty of places in the world are 'more expensive' than neighbouring regions and yet don't 'build out quickly'.

Lastly, and most importantly, Vancouver has built up quite dramatically over the last two decades, and even as it has done this, affordability has plummeted.

The problem with 'NIMBYism and Housing' is the degree to which that position is ideological and that people don't recognize it as such.

There is no such thing as 'over/under' building for any specific community, there is only such a thing relative to net demand in nation for example that is either growing or shrinking for natural reasons or migration.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#216

Post by abernard1 »

birken wrote: post #72
CryptoPunk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, San Francisco is lagging cities in Texas in providing social services, which is why its homelesssness/street-disorder/drug-abuse problem is so much worse. There is a point at which you have to realize/admit that your ideological narrative, and the public sector interests who popularize it, are wrong. The left coast cities, from San Fran to Vancouver, have prioritized decriminalization of drugs, social services,…

SF is over 5x denser than Dallas, which is the densest major city in Texas. The problem with homelessness is people can't afford to live in homes. It is a lot easier to avoid homelessness when you have essentially endless space to build housing.

> It is a lot easier to avoid homelessness when you have essentially endless space to build housing.

This is hyperbole and dramatically wrong. It's one of those statistics that's repeated in Bay Area circles but has no bearing on reality.

Houston metro is almost the same size as the entire 9-county Bay Area metro: 7M population, 10K sq mi.

Bay Area 9 county: 7.4M population, 7K sq mi.

Houston metro pop density = 0.7K people / sq mi. Bay Area 9 county = 1.05K people / sq mi.

So, the Bay Area 9 county is only 1.5 times as dense as Houston, largely because Houston allows many more high rises.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#217

Post by BobbyJo »

chomp wrote: post #36
systemvoltage wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People of San Francisco passed a law t̶o̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶r̶o̶b̶b̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶$̶1̶0̶0̶0̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶p̶s̶.̶ They also expect safe neighborhoods. You can't have both. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26040812 Liberal policies such as this does not solve the actual problem. Instead of providing food and shelter to the poor, perhaps st…

> People of San Francisco passed a law to allow any robbery under $1000 That’s just not true at all, come on, you’re intentionally spreading misinformation. It raised the limit to $950 for the felony threshold for simple theft. Robbery is still a felony. “Prop 47 doesn’t cover robberies, theft by the use of force or fear. It doesn’t cover burglaries,” Gascón said. “If you break into a structure with the intent to com…

If anything under 950 is a misdemeanor and San Francisco isn't pressing charges on anything that isn't a felony, it's effectively legalized theft. You don't need to rob anyone if you can walk into any store and take whatever you want and the police do nothing about it.

Watch some recent episodes of Soft White Underbelly with homeless people in SF. It will really open your eyes to how much the problem is the cities disinterest in doing anything at all to fix things. All of their 'fixes' are really just enablement.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#218

Post by pm90 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #115
taylorlapeyre wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly never said that homelessness is “just life.” I’m just realistic. San Francisco will probably always have this problem to some extent, and it’s our responsibility as San Franciscans to help alleviate it as much as possible. None of this has to do with my original point about San Francisco’s recent changes, which I have personally experienced as having a much higher density of artists.

> San Francisco will probably always have this problem to some extent But why? Other cities don't. For example Liechtenstein has literally no homeless people in the entire country. They had to close their last homeless shelter... because it was empty. Many other global cities have single-digit homeless per 100k population. Why does San Francisco have literally ten thousand homeless people and why are the numbers stil…

To a certain extent, housing is a statewide problem (prop 13) which the city has limited power to address. To another extent, the lack of a National affordable healthcare program and support for people in duress amplifies the problem even further.

The city has also taken a more humane approach to dealing with the homeless rather than incarcerating or throwing them elsewhere. Most of the homeless suffer from drug/alcohol related issues and the city has tried different approaches to solving this problem.

Overall, it’s a confluence of many problems that makes it very difficult to “solve” the homelessness problem. Comparing to another city with different circumstances isn’t really helpful; they’re not facing the same situation.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#219

Post by jeffbee »

jariel wrote: post #215
jeffbee wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say that Vancouver built built built requires an ignorance of historical building rates. Vancouver, like the American west coast cities, severely underbuilt for decades and only recently returned to historical average rate of home building, which does not help address the accumulated deficit. For example in 2009 the whole city only built 9000 new homes, which is 1/3rd the average historical per-capita rate.

"severely underbuilt for decades " First - there is no such thing as 'under built'. A community can house as many people as it houses - and that's that. There can be an 'amount of new development relative to other places' - but not without a massive dose of 'housing ideology' can you say how much is over or under. Second, the notion that 'there was less building for decades and then a lot of building, but not enough…

> First - there is no such thing as 'under built'.

Yes, there is. In a regime of rapidly increasing life expectancy, there is a demographic certainty of future housing needs.

Re: Californians aren’t leaving the state en masse but are leaving San Francisco

#220

Post by nrp »

29athrowaway wrote: post #193
Moodles wrote: post #6

I'm leaving San Francisco next month also. I just see no reason to continue living here. The weather is nice in California, but the city is so mismanaged it's a joke. The homelessness has been an issue for decades now and local politicians always talk about it, but what do they actually do to help? I genuinely have no clue where the high taxes go. I just find it so ironic that San Francisco is a bastion of liberalism…

What people call "homelessness", are different (yet overlapping) problems that can be mitigated separately: 1) Public urination / defecation: There is a need for more public bathrooms. That's cheaper than spending millions of dollars cleaning poop and urine from the streets. 2) Public intoxication and substance abuse: Decriminalizing drugs and letting people get as intoxicated as they want is not a responsible approa…

The public bathroom issue is in part due to corruption in the city government: https://missionlocal.org/2020/02/citing-mohammed-nuru-charge...
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