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

#261

Post by BeetleB » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:42 AM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #141

shkkmo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Density makes it easier to build the infrastructure to support population growth. Distribution makes it more expensive to build that infrastructure. Thus inreasing distribution hinders rather than helps the ability of California to support a larger population. That seems to directly contradict the points you were making.

Okay. Let's try this: raldi et al are talking about whether the state can support a 150% population increase, but I'm talking about whether 150% more people will want to live there. Let's walk through some of the numbers and issues in detail, together. As of 2019, San Francisco county has a population density of about 18,000 people per square mile. Let's say that San Francisco county is the ideal scenario for the Ral…

> Well, if the greater Bay Area were a country, it would now be the world's 3rd highest population density (give or take) [1]

This is a useless point to make. Of course its density is high compared to countries, because most countries don't consist of just one sprawling city with no land around it.

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

#262

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:43 AM UTC

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.

Happily full of voters that collect tons of government aid via Medicare, Social Security, and National Flood Insurance Program, and yet happy to decry government help for anyone else.

Let me know when FL has parental leave or any half decent employment laws that help those at the bottom.

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

#263

Post by contrarian_5 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:53 AM UTC

i was born and raised in california. i left a year ago for the midwest.

the situation in california is depressing. and im not talking about human poop or homeless people. im talking about jobs, culture and general lifestyle. california is filled with lots of very ugly urban wasteland. its filled with lots and lots of very disadvantaged people, hordes upon hordes of people who might not be homeless but are involved in crime and smoke meth and shoot up heroin. there is broken glass on every other sidewalk. its basically legal for people to steal things as long as its less than a thousand dollars, in that the penalty is so small that it might as well be legal. im just rattling off my lifes truth, my memories.

but worst of all is the grey dread everywhere. people in california do not think for themselves. they are so career oriented and so entangled in the bureaucratic system of formal societal infrastructure that basic common sense is dying a brutal death and you can feel this when you are amidst it. i always felt anxious because its a society resting completely on its laurels. there is nothing propelling it forward besides the momentum created by the previous generation of single minded, abrasive intellectual mavericks who raged against convention and dogma. now california is the embodiment of convention and dogma. its largest companies have transitioned over the past ten years from pioneers to custodians of entrenched power and market dominance.

i could feel this when i was a small boy growing up in the san francisco bay area. my peers seemed super petty and intellectually average. easily pulled into dogmatic, fuzzy ideas. most of them anyway. when i imagine the country now being the result of my generation growing up and using their dollars and tweets as their votes, it all lines up.

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

#264

Post by zucker42 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #204

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?

People leaving may decrease housing prices but it also increases the cost of public services per capita. It also can lead abandoned areas as in Detroit.

On the other hand modest growth accompanied by significant increases in the housing supply would also cause the COL to stagnate, but they increase the tax base and decrease the per capita cost of public services, especially if the resulting developments are dense and mixed use.

What we don't want is CA to become a place that's inaccessible to middle class, working families, and the population to skew towards people who are too old to want to move. An exodus of working families just as infrastructure and pension liabilities come due is a recipe for economic disaster.

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

#265

Post by andi999 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:56 AM UTC

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…

Just wondering: would you know the total tax and fees for such a salary. (there is probably federal tax etc). I am not to familiar with the US system.

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

#266

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:56 AM UTC

zucker42 wrote: post #260

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?

What's worrying is not the population drop by itself, but the widespread belief that it's caused by ridiculous housing prices that we're not effectively addressing.

If it’s just housing prices, then people leaving will reduce demand until an equilibrium is reached. Of course, that really isn’t happening because the big popular cities are still gaining people.

I also don’t see how NYC scale density will improve things that much, it’s not like NYC is much more affordable than the Bay Area or LA.

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

#267

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #265

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…

Just wondering: would you know the total tax and fees for such a salary. (there is probably federal tax etc). I am not to familiar with the US system.

There are various calculators you can find on Google. This is the one I used to get the numbers above: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#rSyRW...

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

#268

Post by zucker42 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #120

California is just at saturation level. There's just too many people for the small strip of coastal land that is inhabitable. All I could think while living there for 5 years was how damn cool it must have been in the 60's/70's with literally half as many people. The traffic, the crowds everywhere at all times, it's all just too much at this point. It's still an amazing paradise playground if you're a millionaire. Bu…

What's the evidence that CA's problems are caused by just too many people? Do you think the East Coast (from Boston to DC) is oversaturated?

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

#269

Post by sgustard » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

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'…

All those problems get better as the population declines.

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

#270

Post by jiggliemon » Sat, May 08, 2021, 6:03 AM UTC

sgustard wrote: post #269

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'…

All those problems get better as the population declines.

This is the biggest asshole response to real problems that I see Californians say all the time.

Maybe I just know too many assholes – but there has to be a better answer to “people are fleeing California for legitimate reasons” than “good riddance.”