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California’s population shrinks for third straight year

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Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#31

Post by kneebonian »

22289d wrote: post #20
TulliusCicero wrote: post #5

California is a great state in many ways, but it'd be a stretch to say it's even half assed a solution to its housing problem: they've quarter assed it at most. And it does someone no good for a state to be great in many ways if they can't afford to live there. The situation has been dire for some time, but all they do are small incremental steps towards building more housing, it's nowhere close to what's necessary.…

It's not a problem to everyone. For example, it's not a problem to many homeowners that the value of their homes keep going up and to the right. Living in California is expensive, in more ways than just housing. Not everyone can afford it. Just like not everyone can afford a new BMW. In my corner of the state, people who increasingly cannot afford to live here are noisy. I mostly don't engage because I'm aware that I…

So if people keep leaving then the property values go down. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.

Imagine property values start plunging, people can't leave, they just start abandoning houses, soon you get vast swathes of abandoned houses which lead to increased crime and urban decay.

Decades from now people will shake their heads and talk about the golden days of California and the problems with the silicon belt.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#32

Post by NHQ »

You might think this translates to less population congestion, but the reality is they want to raise rents and pack 4-8 immigrants or migrant laborers where previously one or two people lived. The wealth of California is dependent on cheap labor to obtain. They would have to sell if even the leaf blower guy was paid real wages. Rich and poor only, no mids.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#33

Post by AlbertCory »

rsj_hn wrote: post #26
ww520 wrote: post #14

Unpopular opinion. It’s ok to have outbound migration. California has close to 40 millions people. That’s more than lots of countries out there.

Nothing wrong with decreasing population, but when your richest citizens are leaving, and poor migrants are coming in, then you start having fiscal problems, particularly for a state that has decided to fund itself with income and sales taxes rather than property taxes. Another reason why property tax is a more stable funding source -- unlike income, you can't take it with you. There is a whole list of reforms that C…

Your last paragraph is self-contradictory.

Ending Prop 13 would not cause "significantly scaling back spending and decreasing its vast administrative bureaucracies." Instead it would have the opposite effect. All other taxes would stay the same, but now they'd have this additional source of money.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#34

Post by lovelearning »

rsj_hn wrote: post #26
ww520 wrote: post #14

Unpopular opinion. It’s ok to have outbound migration. California has close to 40 millions people. That’s more than lots of countries out there.

Nothing wrong with decreasing population, but when your richest citizens are leaving, and poor migrants are coming in, then you start having fiscal problems, particularly for a state that has decided to fund itself with income and sales taxes rather than property taxes. Another reason why property tax is a more stable funding source -- unlike income, you can't take it with you. There is a whole list of reforms that C…

> when your richest citizens are leaving

But the article says "a majority" of those leaving were middle- or low-income people.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#35

Post by friedman23 »

People are doing the math. If you make enough money in California you pay 10% of your income in taxes. First of all, what do you get from that 10% you pay that don't get in other states with lower or no income taxes? For the people paying the taxes the answer is not much. People also fail to account for the fact that the 10% they are paying is 10% of their GROSS income, not net after federal taxes. So if you are already paying 30% of your income in taxes that 10% can be a material increase in the quality of your life. It's the equivalent of receiving 16% more net income. Also subtract what you pay in increased food prices and increased housing costs you will be saving much much more by leaving CA.

People in California seem to believe that other parts of the country with lower taxes are hell on earth, they aren't. When I moved to San Francisco, I had many conversations with people denigrating my home state of Florida. In retrospect I can see this for what it was, a coping mechanism for having to live in such a terrible place and pay an absurd amount of money for the privilege of doing so.

The reason California has seen such economic success can be attributed to proximity to the fastest growing economies and largest manufacturing hubs in the past 30 years and a little luck. If you really need to live on the west coast, Washington state is a much better option.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#36

Post by fundad »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #23
jeffbee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also explains why Texas is growing the quickest. It turns out that population is basically the integral of new home starts. Who could have predicted this, except every YIMBY I know who has been screaming about this for 25+ years?

Texas also has a ton of NIMBYism. That's the same root sentiment for "Don't California my Texas" which says "You may be a resident, but you better not do something I don't like" -- same mentality. I see this same resistance when it comes to building non-single family homes, and Texans are instead thinking more lanes + more sprawl is going to solve the influx of people. Then they lament pricing and make claim that lon…

I wonder how housing inflation rates compare across states.

TX real estate looks cheap to ex-Californians but has TX or any state kept housing affordable for existing residents in the past few years?

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#37

Post by greesil »

22289d wrote: post #20
TulliusCicero wrote: post #5

California is a great state in many ways, but it'd be a stretch to say it's even half assed a solution to its housing problem: they've quarter assed it at most. And it does someone no good for a state to be great in many ways if they can't afford to live there. The situation has been dire for some time, but all they do are small incremental steps towards building more housing, it's nowhere close to what's necessary.…

It's not a problem to everyone. For example, it's not a problem to many homeowners that the value of their homes keep going up and to the right. Living in California is expensive, in more ways than just housing. Not everyone can afford it. Just like not everyone can afford a new BMW. In my corner of the state, people who increasingly cannot afford to live here are noisy. I mostly don't engage because I'm aware that I…

Do you support building more housing? Near your home?

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#38

Post by maerF0x0 »

fundad wrote: post #36
maerF0x0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas also has a ton of NIMBYism. That's the same root sentiment for "Don't California my Texas" which says "You may be a resident, but you better not do something I don't like" -- same mentality. I see this same resistance when it comes to building non-single family homes, and Texans are instead thinking more lanes + more sprawl is going to solve the influx of people. Then they lament pricing and make claim that lon…

I wonder how housing inflation rates compare across states. TX real estate looks cheap to ex-Californians but has TX or any state kept housing affordable for existing residents in the past few years?

AFAIK Austin has been one of the fastest rising (and now falling) real estate markets. People have been rushing to Austin since before COVID in 2020 and but also participated in the great dispersion.

(eg a hit on google: https://learn.roofstock.com/blog/fastest-growing-real-estate...)

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#39

Post by theptip »

kneebonian wrote: post #28
ww520 wrote: post #14

Unpopular opinion. It’s ok to have outbound migration. California has close to 40 millions people. That’s more than lots of countries out there.

It's the consequences of this. A shrinking tax base meaning the government has to cut back on programs and services. It means reduced infrastructure spending and maintenance. These have down the road effects. If you have a shrinking/fleeing population you can see what ends up happening by looking at the rust belt. If people are fleeing a state that often means that the problems are so bad people are willing to overha…

> If people are fleeing a state that often means that the problems are so bad

But much of the outflow is quite easily explained by the Covid shift to remote work allowing everyone in the Bay Area to take their high salary savings and buy houses wherever they fantasized about living.

You can’t really directly compare to previous migrations because those all involved making a career-impacting change. This one required merely overcoming the activation energy of a house move. So the signal about the “cost of staying put” is much weaker than in the past.

This is not to claim that Silicon Valley / SFBA doesn’t have problems, just that the analogy to Detroit probably doesn’t work without significant caveats.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#40

Post by ryanSrich »

jeffbee wrote: post #19
ryanSrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah crazy to think that people like cheap houses and no income tax /s. But in all seriousness. The ROI on California taxes has to be one of the worst deals in the country. I can’t think of another state (maybe NY) that does so little with so much.

California sits right at the national average for state and local revenue per capita. The real high-tax states are places like NY, NJ, CT, and MA.

I’m not talking about tax burden, I’m talking about tax ROI. Essentially what you get in return for your taxes. You could argue that Texas is objectively a worse state to live in tax-wise because you essentially get nothing in return for your taxes. Not even a fully functioning power grid (that you still have to pay usage rates for). So tax rates are low, but return on what you do pay is even lower.

But I’m talking about California. They have high tax rates across the board, certainly not the highest as you’ve pointed out. However, even with high rates, the citizenry gets almost nothing in return.

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