California population declines for first time in more than a century • Hacker News Board

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#201

Post by raldi » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:33 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #191

raldi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary reason we have a fire season at all is that we don't let people build housing in California's existing cities and towns, and so instead they sprawl out into fire-prone areas requiring long-distance power lines. https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/news/release/wui-interface-intermi...

A lot of places have long-distance power lines. They don't all burn up on a regular basis. So, no, that can't be it. (That being said, yes, it would be better if power generation were decentralized, and California seems like the right place to do just that.)

Did you read the link? It’s specifically when the power lines run through fire-prone land, and also when the trees/brush interact with houses. The plants spread flames rapidly, and the buildings act as torches, keeping the fire going long after nature would’ve burned up.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#202

Post by raldi » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

Hypx_ wrote: post #193

raldi wrote: post #18

Paradise on Earth and home to the world’s brightest-future industry; California could easily grow to 100M residents if it simply allowed housing to be built to accommodate all the people who want to live here. And it would be a net win for the climate, because most of them would be coming from much less eco-friendly places.

That's a bit of a stretch. You would to rethink how American society works for that to happen. Everything from water use and automotive dependency would have be reconsidered. And since this is earthquake country construction is relatively expensive. It doesn't take much math to realize that building enough housing for a 60M population increase would cost around $10T. So while this is an theoretical exercise but in re…

Why would one need to rethink how society works? This is how all cities grew until single-family-houses-only zoning swept the United States in the 1970s. And if Tokyo can build skyscrapers, I don’t see why earthquakes would keep California from replacing 40’ SFHs with 40’ multifamily buildings.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#203

Post by thisCtx » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

gautamcgoel wrote: post #67

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.

To be fair the gerontocracy is pretty much saying that to all millennials in the US.

They invested all those years ago and we damn well best recognize their sacrifice with eternal servitude, and be thankful our buying power is deflated to prop up theirs!

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#204

Post by Thorrez » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #76

There are several comments on this page from people who say they are in California and think this news is a good thing, and also seem to perversely think that it's not a terrible terrible sign for any native Californian who isn't already tremendously wealthy. This is probably my biggest complaint about California: there is this incredibly wrong strain of thought that keeping people out will somehow make everyone's li…

Doesn't people leaving reduce housing prices?

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#205

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

If you look at a California population graph over the last one hundred years, you see a huge growth in population, being at about parity with Texas in 1940. And now, that really long population boom has leveled off and started to even decline a bit, not a drastic drop. It sounds like maybe California has just reached it’s carrying capacity for the time being, why should we be worried about that?

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#206

Post by seryoiupfurds » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #192

ohazi wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i.e. the original sin that gave us this problem in the first place. It makes absolutely no sense to have the older, wealthier, luckier, "I got here early, therefore I'm set for life" generation pay $300/year, while the couple in their thirties who moved in two years ago, have a new baby, and can barely afford the mortgage and daycare despite both parents working in tech have to pay nearly $15,000/year. I know the ori…

I've never seen a good solution for this. If the taxes get locked in, then you get the "2 neighbors with near identical houses paying totally different amounts in taxes" problem. If the taxes are not locked in, then you get the retired lifelong home-owner (or renter) on a fixed income, unable to afford the increasing taxes (or rents).

In other jurisdictions the solution is to allow the retired homeowner to defer property taxes, to be paid out of the eventual proceeds of a sale.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#207

Post by throwaway09223 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #205

If you look at a California population graph over the last one hundred years, you see a huge growth in population, being at about parity with Texas in 1940. And now, that really long population boom has leveled off and started to even decline a bit, not a drastic drop. It sounds like maybe California has just reached it’s carrying capacity for the time being, why should we be worried about that?

We should be aware because growth curves will change in all sorts of places, breaking various forward looking economic expectations.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#208

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:40 AM UTC

bgorman wrote: post #117

The crazy thing to me is just how ugly urban areas of California are. All around the bay it is just strip mall after strip mall and post-war cheap single family homes. Other than property values, for the vast majority of the San Francisco Bay area - zoning restrictions solve absolutely nothing. Allowing mixed use zoning around the bay would make the Bay area a much nicer. Likewise in Los Angeles, pretty much everythi…

> Allowing mixed use zoning around the bay would make the Bay area a much nicer.

Not just there.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#209

Post by briga » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #195

It's been a couple of decades since I lived in California and my parents moved out to Nevada five years ago so my current knowledge of the state is pretty much from media and online sources. Despite that, I have to wonder if the state has simply become too unwieldly and if it's time to give the idea of splitting it into multiple states some serious consideration. While I didn't like the "Six Californias" plan, some o…

The bureaucracy in California definitely feels excessive. Taxes are too high and don't seem to be helping solve the numerous social problems that California is facing. But politically is seems that one of the biggest issues hindering development is how different municipal governments can block and sabotage regional projects at the expense of the rest of the state (e.g. billionaires in Atherton preventing high speed rail "because it would be too noisy"). Is diving the state into even more political units the solution?

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#210

Post by medium_burrito » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #152

scottrogowski wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree so strongly with this sentiment. There is always such a defeatist attitude on these threads that assumes California is somehow full and unchangeable. Outside of the three metro areas, it's basically empty! Separately, in the metro areas, there's a lot of room for infill density. Three years back, I made the rational choice to leave because I could barely see a way to home ownership - not to mention having a f…

California needs to drastically ramp up water availability from new sources. Otherwise there isn't much point to the rest of this conversation.

Stop growing rice and fucknuts in the fucking desert. That solves the water problem.