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

#441

Post by deepnotderp » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #405

failwhaleshark wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandparents bought their house on the SJC - Los Gatos border for $30k in 1968. It sold in 2019 for $1.4M. That's what piggyback second mortgages are for. There are also subsidized loans for first-time buyers in the US called FHA loans that allow 3.5% to 10% down payments.

> $30k in 1968. It sold in 2019 for $1.4M. and the same $30k invested in the S&P 500 in 1968 would have earned you 186x - or $5,580,000 (using http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm as a guide to calculate returns). And yet, nobody bats an eye that this amazing returns of stocks, and continues to complain that housing prices are too high today, when it was "cheap" in the past. But was it really cheap in t…

But I don’t need stocks in order to survive. I do need shelter though.

As long as housing is seen as an investment it’s not going to be affordable.

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

#442

Post by ironmagma » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

collaborative wrote: post #318

ironmagma wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great way to build a neighborhood full of miserable people. What was the goal again?

The goal was to put roofs over people's heads

Can’t they just be normal, neutral-looking roofs? Why do they have to be designed to be ugly?

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

#443

Post by AdrianB1 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

zrobotics wrote: post #431

AdrianB1 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is easy, eliminate property taxes. That property was bought with money that was already taxed. If you provide services, ask them to pay for the actual services provided, not for a generic tax. Common services like police can be split to the number of residents.

The reason you are being downvoted is that you are proposing an extremely regressive tax. For example, splitting police costs among the residents evenly means that everyone, regardless of income, has the same tax burden. The reason property taxes are based on value is that it acts to tax wealthier people at a higher rate than poorer people. Plus, just because the money that purchased the land was taxed means nothing…

I don't mind people having different opinions, I am a bit sad to see some are not honest.

1. There are places in the civilized world without property taxes.

2. I am not proposing a regressive tax system, I am proposing a tax system based on actual consumption and frugal mindset. People are always equal until they are not - one man one vote is good, but one man one dollar tax is bad, 'cause some men cannot afford to pay for the services they get, but they have equal right to vote. That is hypocrisy. In some circumstances I am fine with people living on state care or UBI, but they should completely give up their right to vote as they are incapable of having a solid life for themselves, so they are incapable of deciding for community.

3. When you pay per service, you are a lot more careful with what you ask for and what you get for than when you pay a sum for a bucket of "something". A colleague that lived somewhere in a small town in Ohio told me they did not have a police force in their community by choice: the cost-benefit ratio was not good. A different colleague told me she was paying about half of her salary (low level manager in a big company) as property tax for the small farm her family had for generations, somewhere in West Virginia. In my part of the world most of the tax money are wasted on things that are not necessarily the biggest priority for the community, but the politicians are rarely competent and most people don't mind the waste, while others like me do. This is why I am looking at a zero tax and pay per service to eliminate waste.

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

#444

Post by AdrianB1 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #350

AdrianB1 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that it is not "good riddance", but an observation that as the population declines the housing problem is decreasing until it will go away? Population growth is a real problem, we are living in an finite system called planet Earth. With 1/4 of the world population everyone would live better - less pollution, 4 times more resources per capita, etc. Imagine California with 10-15 million inhabitants,…

> Population growth is a real problem, we are living in an finite system called planet Earth. With 1/4 of the world population everyone would live better First half is true, second half ignorant. Your life is better because somewhere out there are half a dozen poor people mining resources and building goods for you, for a tiny fraction of your income.

I am living in that country where poor people mine resources for others to live good, so I know what I am writing about. My family is from a mountain area where timber and cow farms were the only resources they lived on, now we can barely get enough wood for maintain the buildings because the demand is so big that we either limit the consumption or risk massive deforestation. Less people means less demand and more resources per capita.

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

#445

Post by 0x000000E2 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #359

0x000000E2 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of California's problems go back to lack of housing and opposition to building more. Everyone wants to live in Cali for nice weather and jobs. If you stop people from building more housing your property value just keeps rising. Property costs are high because NIMBY blocking denser housing. Traffic is bad because housing density is too low for the population. Homelessness is bad because houses are too expensive.…

Everybody says that but I have never seen a study indicating increased housing availability reduces housing price. Where I live, growth rate 22% decade over decade for the last three decades, housing prices increase directly proportional to the increase of housing quantity. That is until an area is filled at which point housing values will either skyrocket or flatten based upon desirability.

> That is until an area is filled

Thats the issue with your approach. Supply and demand will cause housing in an area to be knocked down and replaced with denser housing. Townhouses, apartments, skyscrapers eventually.

In some places this natural replacement cycle is feircly resisted and local governments are bent to the will of incumbents.

HN leans heavily liberal but this is one place where conservative "small government" lack of regulations works better. In liberal areas local residents will co-opt the systems for making local regulations to protect their own investments. In conservative areas it's more difficult to NIMBY your way to halt development.

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

#446

Post by AdrianB1 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #391

AdrianB1 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is easy, eliminate property taxes. That property was bought with money that was already taxed. If you provide services, ask them to pay for the actual services provided, not for a generic tax. Common services like police can be split to the number of residents.

This "the money was already taxed" line is so much BS. There's not some law handed from God that says "Thy shall only levy taxes on a single dollar once in its entire existence". There isn't even one that says "Thou shalt not levy a tax on this meagre dollar more than once as long as it is held by this particular individual". Taxes are a matter of choice - a (democratic, even vaguely) society makes a choice to spend…

Would you go to Mars to ask the people moving there to pay tax on the land they will own? Where is the boundary of what you think you can "democratically" force your taxation views on? I consider zero taxation as living people alone to live their lives, not as forcing them to do something that I think it's good for society.

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

#447

Post by jshen » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

svnt wrote: post #426

jshen wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not buying a house doesn’t do anything to fix the problem.

This is identical to saying that cutting your carbon footprint does nothing to help the problem.

Those aren’t identical at all.

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

#448

Post by 0x000000E2 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

joejerryronnie wrote: post #421

austincheney wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody says that but I have never seen a study indicating increased housing availability reduces housing price. Where I live, growth rate 22% decade over decade for the last three decades, housing prices increase directly proportional to the increase of housing quantity. That is until an area is filled at which point housing values will either skyrocket or flatten based upon desirability.

You’ve hit the nail on the head here. The desirable parts of CA are located typically along the coast with geographies which don’t allow unlimited expansion (lots of hills/mountains and water). No matter how many houses we build, the desire to live here for the weather/amenities/economy will continue to outstrip supply. Plus, it’s not just housing which would need to expand, it’s transportation, water, etc. There are…

IMO it's not true. If it wasn't for rampant NIMBY in Cali developers would gladly replace low density housing with skyscrapers.

There's less space but you can always build up. But none of the Cali cities allow this. That's why despite California's huge population you don't see any cities with skyscrapers and traffic is so bad.

Building upwards also solves the transportation issues.

Look at places like Tokyo and Singapore in comparison to Cali coasts. They're are all space constrained but these places managed to fit 20X the people in the same space and they still don't have Cali level traffic problems

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

#449

Post by 0x000000E2 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

jiggliemon wrote: post #273

0x000000E2 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of California's problems go back to lack of housing and opposition to building more. Everyone wants to live in Cali for nice weather and jobs. If you stop people from building more housing your property value just keeps rising. Property costs are high because NIMBY blocking denser housing. Traffic is bad because housing density is too low for the population. Homelessness is bad because houses are too expensive.…

NIMBYism regarding more housing really only pertains to metropolitan/urban areas. How come the rest of the state can’t build housing consummate to the demand?

NIMBY is everywhere in California. For being such a liberal state it's crazy how local governments are obsessed with stopping new and denser housing from being built

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

#450

Post by 0x000000E2 » Sat, May 08, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

codefreakxff wrote: post #329

0x000000E2 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of California's problems go back to lack of housing and opposition to building more. Everyone wants to live in Cali for nice weather and jobs. If you stop people from building more housing your property value just keeps rising. Property costs are high because NIMBY blocking denser housing. Traffic is bad because housing density is too low for the population. Homelessness is bad because houses are too expensive.…

I’m not sure I understand your statement that traffic is bad because housing density is too low for the population. Certainly just increasing density with no other controls just increases traffic congestion. The best approach would be increasing density while decreasing reliance on personal transportation. https://www.transformca.org/transform-blog-post/our-take-gre...

Forcing low density housing causes sprawl. Look at European cities which generally have cores 5-10x denser than Cali. Most of them have no such traffic problems because you don't have the whole population travelling 30 miles on roads every day