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California population declines for first time in more than a century

wsj.com

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

#221

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

nemo44x wrote: post #154
cptskippy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love someone from Florida calling California's political system dysfunctional.

I’m not from there or live there (FL or CA) but from the outside looking in, CA is in crisis whether it knows it or not. It’s sick right now but I hope it can get better. FL seems happy.

> FL seems happy.

Not especially. Rents have tripled and available homes have dropped to ~0, due to a sudden influx of move-ins buying every sq inch of property.

Meanwhile wages remain well below national average. Auto, housing and health insurance are each among the highest in the nation. Our homeless population has long been enormous and is getting ready to skyrocket. Excepting kids, socials services for the vulnerable are largely non-existent. We've spent more time in drought than out of it over the last 30 years. The 13th month of summer is the worst btw. Coastal beaches are routinely closed due to high bacteria counts.

Past that it's probably like everywhere.

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

#222

Post by ohazi »

jshen wrote: post #196
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…

You can absolutely afford it on two tech salaries. I was exactly the person your describing 15+ years ago, but my wife wasn’t working so we only had one tech salary. Fast forward all that time, and the housing market you complain about will likely be a huge wealth generator for you, where as this cheap houses in the middle of no where won’t be.

> Fast forward all that time, and the housing market you complain about will likely be a huge wealth generator for you

But this perpetuates the problem, and makes it much worse for the next generation! You do realize that this can't continue indefinitely, right? I mean, maybe this doesn't bother you, which I suppose is fine. Does it bother you?

Look, you're technically right. I also own a house in California, and am far better off because of it. But it still bothers the hell out of me.

I'd much rather fix the problem in the general case than adopt this "I've got mine, therefore everything is fine" sense of entitlement.

Do you really want to be 90 years old in your $50 million NorCal farmhouse paying your grandfathered in $15,000/year property taxes when everyone else paying $500,000/year decide that enough is enough and torch the place?

A retirement strategy that depends on screwing over a younger generation and hoping that they don't manage to get revenge before you die is a risky bet.

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

#224

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

rawtxapp wrote: post #13
kstrauser wrote: post #5

I'm not sure how much I believe that. It seems likely that this census was incredibly compromised compared to past censuses, and the 0.4% decline is well within what I'd consider a plausible margin of error.

In absolute numbers, California has a population of ~39.51M, so 182k isn't significant enough. Personally, I left for a multitude of reasons, but whoever takes these statistics and concludes that "California is dying" is delusional in my opinion, at least for the foreseable future.

It strikes me as the quote “nobody goes there, it’s too crowded.”

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

#225

Post by seanmcdirmid »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #207
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.

But the curve for California seems really steady, I don’t think we will see any big surprises in the next ten years barring some kind of Katrina-scale natural disaster.

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

#226

Post by digitaltrees »

pbuzbee wrote: post #178

I feel like it's only going to get worse. California has a good number of problems: housing costs, traffic, wildfires, homelessness, ... and the high tax rate you pay for the privilege of enjoying them. But I haven't seen California take meaningful steps to solve any of these. We're still in the stage of "problems are getting worse", and any solutions will take a long time to materialize. I grew up in California. It'…

Good jobs are not easy to find in lots of places. Don’t underestimate the value of that.

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

#227

Post by Hypx_ »

raldi wrote: post #202
Hypx_ wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Japan has a much better mass transit system and a culture that does not embrace the automobile like the US has. Plus, Japan has far more access to fresh water that California does. And Tokyo doesn't have that many skyscrapers. In fact, for a city of its size it has surprisingly few.

Even if we could magically upgrade every SFH to a multi-family building we'll have very unlivable cities with infrastructure falling well short of comfortably supporting the resulting population. So a realistic and worthwhile path to 100M would be a long and very expensive process.

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

#228

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

medium_burrito wrote: post #210
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And farm where? The aquifer used by most of the midwest is over half drained and can't be replenished. South of there is dessert. North is cold. East is populous and mountainous.

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

#229

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

tempestn wrote: post #11
reidjs wrote: post #6

Finally some good news for CA natives. It sucks not being able to afford to live where you grew up. Maybe this will ease the housing market a bit?

Reminds me of, "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." https://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-yogi-berra...

I think the same thing whenever people talk about how it’s so expensive that nobody can afford it.

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

#230

Post by gautamcgoel »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #218
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.

> on top of that, the state income tax on a prof's salary is 9-10%. I think you are either too optimistic in what a professor can earn in California, or you are missing that taxes are marginal. I know a CS professor at UCLA who just makes around $120k, so single filer California taxes would pay just be around 6.5%. If you throw in a spouse with an additional $80k of income, you’ll hit 6%. To pay an effective 10% rate…

Thanks for this comment. I must have misread at what income the 9% rate kicks in. Is your friend an assistant prof, or does he/she have tenure?
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