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California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

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Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#41

Post by almost_usual »

handmodel wrote: post #13
xadhominemx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth (repeated endlessly here and elsewhere) is that high taxes and excessive commercial regulation are driving wealthy founders and other knowledge workers out of California. The truth is that high housing prices are driving low and middle income households out of the state.

I guess this is probably the story that gets repeated in places like HN which I agree is common. However, if you ever talk to uber drivers or your waiters they will complain about how expensive California is. Or even people at parties who are in between jobs and thinking of moving to where they grew up. I guess in real life I just hear more people talk about the general cost of living argument than a than the specifi…

> who are in between jobs and thinking of moving to where they grew up

I hear the opposite, people cannot afford where they grew up. Most people from the Bay Area aren’t working high paying tech jobs.

> I guess in real life I just hear more people talk about the general cost of living argument than a than the specific anti-tech one.

Anti-tech sentiment peaked in the early 2010s. Tech buses stopped being vandalized and the “die techie scum” thing mostly went away after 2015.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#42

Post by geofft »

lostinquebec wrote: post #19
gameswithgo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a dumb quote by bezos

The election wins of Trump, Boris Johnson, Brexit and The Liberals in Australia show that data collection really matters. Similarly the financial crisis of 2009 shows that missing data can really matter. That's the key point of the quote: > There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it

But those are all examples of data collection working fine, though, and people not listening to the data because their anecdotes went the wrong way.

FiveThirtyEight predicted a 28.6% chance of a Trump victory: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ This is a number far greater than zero - it is, for comparison, more likely than flipping two coins and them both coming up heads, or drawing a random card from a deck and having it be diamonds.

Opinion polling of the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election showed Boris Johnson favored to win: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2019_C...

Opinion polling on Brexit showed that it clearly could have gone either way, with a narrow margin between the two options: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United...

I'm less familiar with Australian politics, but assuming you mean the 2013 election, opinion polls showed the Liberals were clearly in the lead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2013_A...

If people look at data that says "28.6% chance of winning" and they choose to read it as "0% chance of winning," that's not a problem with the way anyone's measuring anything, that's a problem with people trying to treat data as if it's an anecdote.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#43

Post by jseliger »

labster wrote: post #5

Housing is the real problem. I still live in the neighborhood where I grew up in Southern California. Back when I was a kid, we used to have street gangs, but they’ve all been gentrified out. They’re putting up a new housing complex in my neighborhood, and I learned that I qualify for the affordable housing units on a senior developer salary, because it’s below the median income.

They’re putting up a new housing complex in my neighborhood

At least the neighborhood is allowing some amount of new housing supply, however minor, as that additional supply is vital for affordability: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/theres-no-...

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#44

Post by deep-root »

A "back of the napkin" calculation seems to indicate there is no mass exodus. On mobile, but here is the typical annual CA pop change stats for the past decade, give or take:

  --Incoming--
  - 400K domestic immigrants[1]
  - 180-200K international immigrants[2]
  - 450K births[4]
  Subtotal: ~1.1M

  --Outgoing--
  - 600K domestic emigrants[1]
  - 250K deaths[4]
  - ?? intl emigrants (anyone know?)
  Subtotal: ~850K

  Typical annual net change: +250K (California grew 2.4M from 2010-2020[3])
California shrank in 2020 for the first time in decades seemingly because:

  - 50-80K excess deaths
  - 180-200K less intl immigration
  - 50K fewer births
That's already a loss of 300K people as a one-time event, and the state is down 450K from a typical year. It's easy to come up with another 150K, it's a trivial not "mass exodus" number.

But possibly a lot of those who left were missed in statistics.

[1] https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265 [2] https://www.ppic.org/publication/immigrants-in-california/ [3] https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/ [4] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/state-and-territorial-data....

Edit: learning to format...

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#45

Post by ajmurmann »

Cookingboy wrote: post #22
teachrdan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have data to back that up? Do we know that the number of Californians leaving is higher than before, and if so, by how much?

Anecdotal data is still data, just not conclusive data. But there is a Chinese saying "无风不起浪", which roughly translates to “If there are waves on the water, there must be wind somewhere". We are hearing a ton of these anecdotal stories very recently about Californians moving to other states, especially wealthy, higher income individuals. My gut feeling is that there is some material shift behind it and our systematic…

I wonder if the exodus is true in our personal or group bubble. Two theories:

Tech workers who can work remotely night be more likely to leave but make up a small part of the population of the entire state.

I also wonder if every cohort in SF/SV goes through a pattern where many people they worked with leave the area as they get older. So many people I've worked with there left over the last ~5 years as their lifes changed in things other than tech became important. In many cases this move was somewhat involuntary and driven by high cost of housing and other necessities like day care. So there always might be people who feel like everyone is leaving.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#46

Post by kasey_junk »

fumar wrote: post #33

I am a recent transplant to Southern California. In my experience, educated peers are moving to or searching for cities that provide good value based on their fiscal position. Some of them are moving to NYC or LA metros. Others are looking at Raleigh or Denver and a few Austin. What sticks out to me is how many people are relocating en masse at almost the same time.

Are you a recent transplant due to a life event like college graduation or the like? If so the correlative nature of your peers is likely not that actually interesting from a broad social perspective.

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#48

Post by okareaman »

As a native Californian, I'd be fine with more people moving out of California, especially the coastal areas. The surf spots are overcrowded compared to the days when I had the waves to myself.

Then there's this:

California man blasts Texas 'dystopia' in Op-Ed after moving to Austin

https://www.mysanantonio.com/lifestyle/travel-outdoors/artic...

Re: California exodus is a myth, UC research project finds

#50

Post by hondo77 »

plank_time wrote: post #37

I know several that have left for Texas. I know one that left for Michigan. One that left for San Diego. A few that left for Seattle. So it’s very real. Whether or not it moves the needle though is the bigger question. I myself would never move unless some sort of environmental catastrophe hit it, like forest fires or no more water which is actually a possibility.

You do know that San Diego is in California, right?
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