California population declines for first time in more than a century

The other thing to remember is you generally expect population growth. Even if the decline isn't significant, it means theirs no growth.

This is a good thing. California is a horrible horrible place for most working class people. You will never get ahead.

I'm usually a huge cheerleader for most things California, but I think this comment is missing some important considerations. Namely, people don't just need housing, they also need food, energy, water, transportation, waste management, employment, education, health care, and space for recreation. Every new home that goes up requires a lot of infrastructure to support a healthy population.

And people don't want to be evenly distributed throughout the state. There's still plenty of space in Fresno! But, many of the people who live there wish they lived somewhere else. Lots of people all want to live in the same places; doing some math based off 2010 census numbers, the San Francisco Bay Area currently has an average population density of about 912 people per square mile [1]. That may be getting asymptotically close to the carrying capacity for those areas for people who want to live suburban lifestyles.

California might be able to carry 80 million people, twice its current population, but that will require solving California's population distribution problem -- making some undesirable places a lot more desirable.

[1]: http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm, includes Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties.

I'm for building reasonably priced housing, and apartments.

In CA, Governor Neusome signed some sort of mandate, that put hard limits (build more you NIMBY's) on new housing.

It was done for the right reasons. A lot of his wealthy supporters could care less about rent, but he doesn't seem to be able to be bought--yet.

It's tied to state funds? I would like to know more, but too lazy to do research.

Our little towns, in Marin County, are scrambling for a solution to enable more housing. I shouldn't have used "scrambling". I don't think they really care. They own their homes, but they need funds.

Ok---that said, I don't know how they can think about building anything because of the water shortage?

Not having enough water is huge. They could offer incentives for digging wells I guess?

I am glad Neusome made putting in a mother in-law units much easier. We need more low/middle income housing. We need less mansions though. Neusome is a rich boy, but has progressive values. I went to school with him, and he knows what a struggle life can be sometimes. Yes--even for a rich boy, I felt sorry for him a bit at certain points in his life. He was actually voted most Fashionable in the year book.

Fun fact for those that know nothing about Marin County. Most of you have probally heard of Bolinas before? The town without a sign. A town the locals want kept a secret?

The history of building in Bolinas is kinda interesting. Years ago a bunch of hippies, and other brilliant creative people, saw what a beautiful area Bolinas is, but they knew it could be ruined by overbuilding. They knew it was a far commute, but people would suffer with the long drive to SF because it was such a idyllic location.

The hippies got themselfs on the town council. (I use hippies in the best sence. The world needs more hippies.)

They passed a law that the size of their town would be mandated by water hookups.

There is a hard set number of water hookups, and they went quick. A few years ago a small plot of land with a water hookup became available. Just a tiny piece of land, but it had a legal water spigot. It went for a huge amount money.

Mu point is without more water, I don't know how these housing mandates will work?

A desalination plant might work?

Would I mind seeing a desalination plant instead of San Quentin--yes. San Quentin is a prison right near the bay. It's old, and just a prison to be honest. A lot of those guys could be in a minimum security prison, in better living conditions, but that's another story.

I would like to see some Stimulus money being spent on a desalination plant.

I know nothing about the technology though. I just know water is something very important.

I do feel the wealthy, and those living in mansions, should pay more for water than the rest of us.

(Yes-- I'm all over the place today. I guess I'm nervous over reopening? I need to take a walk.)

I'm a PhD student at Caltech. I'd love to stay in CA and become a prof at one of the world-renown universities in the state. The cost for a nice house is > $800K in all of the cities hosting these universities; on top of that, the state income tax on a prof's salary is 9-10%. CA is basically telling me (and millions of other millennials) that we are not wanted here.

We don't even need to ban single-family houses; we just need to repeal the laws that ban everything else. People who want to pay extra for SFHs will continue to be able to do so, but crucially, people who want to put something else on their land would be able to as well. Those folks would build enough housing to accommodate at least a doubling of the state population.