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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

#231

Post by casefields »

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…

3 states would work best. 1 NorCal which would be heavily blue. SoCal which would lean blueish-purple which Orange County and SD. Then you can carve out a Central Valley state which would be red.

In effect we'd be adding 2 new senators for central/southern California, and it would be 1 red and 1 blue.

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

#232

Post by Lammy »

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'…

To me it feels like that’s why it’s expensive. Either that or it just very coincidentally started getting extremely expensive at the same time housing segregation and home-loan discrimination were banned federally (1968 and 1974 respectively. People ask “WTF happened in 1971?” (https://wtfhappenedin1971.com) like they never took a high school “american history” class.

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

#233

Post by raldi »

Hypx_ wrote: post #227
raldi wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wel…

I agree that we'd have to move away from the idea of every household owning a car, but there are plenty of American cities to look to as an example. Not only did New York somehow find a way to do it, but San Francisco itself was great at it until it decided in the 1970's to make illegal the kind of growth it had been doing continuously since its inception.

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

#234

Post by raldi »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #228
medium_burrito wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we made no change other than to stop growing the almonds that we export overseas, that alone would free up enough water to accommodate about 20 new San Franciscos:

https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/LA-vs-Exports...

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

#235

Post by Steko »

prepend wrote: post #10
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.

It seems very unlikely that this census is corrupted. It’s also a census so the margin of error is not within a plausible margin of error.

This news isn’t even based on the census. CA grew from 2010-2020 under the census. This number is from the CA dept of finance and is for just 2020.

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

#236

Post by seanmcdirmid »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #230
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It is 9.3% on income after $58k until $300k (single filing), but the first $58k is taxed at a lower rate, so you never get anywhere near an effective 9% rate. That’s just the way marginal rates work, Republicans throw out the top tax rate to argue that California is high taxed, but it turns out the taxes are very progressive (the first $100k is taxed very lightly).

He should have tenure. The UC system doesn’t pay that great, and there is also a lot of competition for faculty positions. Your best bet is to make some money on the side , legally of course, advising some company, but even that has a lot of restrictions.

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

#237

Post by DamienB »

linguae wrote: post #95
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.

I'm a lifelong Californian whose lived in Santa Cruz County for nearly nine out of the past 11 years, and as someone who wants to become a CS professor at a teaching university one day, I feel the exact same way. I love California and I don't want to leave the state. However, the housing prices signal to me that if I want to buy a house, I need to have a very high income and maintain it during the length of a 30-year…

Sounds like you'd like to live in Texas.

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

#238

Post by eschaton »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #228
medium_burrito wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That rice and those nuts are mostly exported for profit, not needed for subsistence.

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

#239

Post by dglass »

linguae wrote: post #95
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.

I'm a lifelong Californian whose lived in Santa Cruz County for nearly nine out of the past 11 years, and as someone who wants to become a CS professor at a teaching university one day, I feel the exact same way. I love California and I don't want to leave the state. However, the housing prices signal to me that if I want to buy a house, I need to have a very high income and maintain it during the length of a 30-year…

You don’t need to maintain a sky high salary during the length of a 30 year mortgage though. You can refinance every 3-5 years to reduce your monthly payment as you pay down the principal.

Your mortgage payment can go down quite significantly over 30 years while paying rent will go up quite significantly over 30 years.

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

#240

Post by nradov »

ohazi wrote: post #183
jshen wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind about CA, once you buy that $800k house, your real estate taxes are more or less locked at that price and won’t rise as the value increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

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…

That was only one of the original arguments for Proposition 13. The main reason it passed was that local governments had been jacking up property taxes and spending it on things that most homeowners didn't particularly want, such as higher wages for unionized government employees. Eventually people got fed up with the waste. Prop 13 was a blunt instrument but at least it finally forced local governments to exercise some fiscal restraint.
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