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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

#501

Post by herbst »

epistasis wrote: post #478
herbst wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it paradise then? When I think paradise I don't see homeless and traffic issues normally.

Amazing people, amazing environment, amazing opportunity to contribute to the world. I am fortunate enough to be able to live close to work, and I usually bike otherwise, so traffic is only a problem if there's an emergency. So I'm lucky, I guess, it really is my paradise. I'm not upset by homeless people when I see them, I am upset by the choices of some selfish wealthy people. Homelessness and traffic are policy ch…

Still sounds horrible, not sure what I should say. Traffic rarely is a issue where I live, most people prefer public transport anyway, because it works. We do have homeless, but WAY less and they are getting help. They are not upsetting me (?) I am just glad none of my neighbors has to suffer, this is something I deem important. I know all people here are able life an amazing life. People are amazing too (we are one of the most happy countries after all), it's cleaner than nearly everywhere else and food quality is higher than prolly anywhere. Yet I don't consider it paradise

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

#502

Post by herbst »

raldi wrote: post #408
herbst wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it paradise? Really just wondering as I totally can't see that from afar. I see expensive housing, a lot of poor and homeless, drug issues totally out of control,... Even the tech thing is argueable. Sure most unlucrative unicorns are there, but there are cool and serious startups all around the world.

https://redd.it/an79j2 Never gets too hot, never gets too cold, doesn't rain at all for half the year, you can grow just about anything in your garden, there's natural beauty all around and you get get out there quickly and easily to enjoy it — beaches, snowy mountains, hiking, rolling hills...

There are places in Spain just like that. Only that they are not overpopulated already. That's not exclusive to California, rather available several times on that line around the globe.

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

#503

Post by jjav »

pharmakom wrote: post #331
codefreakxff wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Increasing density will naturally decrease reliance on personal motor-vehicles because more journeys become walkable.

> Increasing density will naturally decrease reliance on personal motor-vehicles because more journeys become walkable.

Only if you don't need to go to work. Which is working wonderfully in pandemic era. I can pretty much walk anywhere I could need in terms of stores and services.

But jobs, unless you work in one of those stores or services, are of course far away, not in the middle of denser housing. Tech company campus won't be between housing rows.

My town has built tons of housing over the last two decades. Offices are still in the industrial campuses farther away and all that new housing means tons of new local traffic. Uncomfortable but true.

It used to be 2 minutes and one stoplight to get to the highway. Now it is 7 stoplights and up to 15 minutes to get to the highway (from the same house).

It would be wonderful if for every new housing block there was an adjacent office complex block, so most people can walk to work, but that's not how it goes. So in practice, yes, increased housing density just means tons new traffic to fight through.

Hopefully I can just remain work from home forever!

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

#504

Post by jjav »

newsclues wrote: post #369
mschuster91 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dense housing is only dense housing, if people still need to commute half an hour or more to their workplaces dense housing is only creating traffic issues. Transport infrastructure (roads, buses, railroads, trams), housing, everyday service infrastructure (supermarkets, medical services, restaurants, haircutters) and employment infrastructure needs to be planned holistically or you're just shifting between problems…

Why can’t you have dense office, retail and housing space (can even be in the same building)? Dense industrial areas are hard

> Why can’t you have dense office, retail and housing space (can even be in the same building)?

I'd love that too, but it's not happening. FAANG isn't building their new HQ campus into the first floor of a new apartment complex. It'll be where it'll be and we'll have to fight through ever increasing traffic to get there.

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

#505

Post by jjav »

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…

> > $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

OPs grandparents would have a difficult time living under a stock certificate.

Housing is to live in, can't compare it to stocks. Unless you plan to be stock-rich but homeless.

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

#506

Post by jjav »

chii wrote: post #495
deepnotderp wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you don't need to own property to live there - you can rent. Buying and owning property will always be an investment. If this investment is worth it (aka, it has outsized returns), then it can not be affordable.

> you don't need to own property to live there - you can rent.

Look up rents in the 60s in Los Gatos vs. rents recently to see what a terrible idea that would've been for those people.

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

#507

Post by jjav »

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…

> I need to have a very high income and maintain it during the length of a 30-year mortgage

Not short-term helpful, but keep in mind that a mortgage only ever goes down due to both refinances and inflation. So the first few years are tough but it can only gets easier. So you don't need to maintain high income for 30 years.

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

#508

Post by jjav »

dglass wrote: post #239
linguae wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Very true. This is the key that makes buying so attractive.

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

#509

Post by jjav »

refurb wrote: post #185
J253 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that CA (LA, SF, SD) housing has always been expensive but it seems like in the past 20 years or so it’s become cumbersomely so. Unless you rode up on the wave of raising house prices through those years (presumably, mostly boomers, or you’re already ultra-wealthy) buying a decent single family home is out of the question. But with the boomer generation approaching EOL (sorry, a bit macabre) does anyone think…

Parents with low prop 13 taxes will be giving those housing to their kids when they die as they can pass on the tax rate as well.

Only if the kid lives in that house, so not exactly true.

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

#510

Post by jjav »

jshen wrote: post #176
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.

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

> your real estate taxes are more or less locked at that price and won’t rise as the value increases.

Well it will rise 2% every year.

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