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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

#41
post #20

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…

You get anger and vitriol because your views are part of the problem. NIMBY’s pull up the ladder and try to turn a nice semi-affordable car into a Porsche then tell everyone “sorry, it’s just expensive to be here. Not my fault!”

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#42
This is “gross” decline, the backing data has a “net” migration of -113k. NY actually had a much higher net decline at -180k which translates to a 3x higher decline as a percentage (0.9% vs 0.3%). This isn’t necessarily a CA thing as people keep positioning it, it’s a high taxes among other things (like housing, and high mobility)

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#43
Moved from the bay to Texas because of everything i heard. It was such a horrible experience. The heat, the bugs, the lack of density.

So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months.

So many people want to live in California which causes more issues

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#44
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.

I agree. I’m confused when I hear about calls to “address” the issue. People leaving isn’t a problem, the real problems are the reasons people move away.

They don't mean someone should put a fence to stop people from leaving obviously.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#45
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You get anger and vitriol because your views are part of the problem. NIMBY’s pull up the ladder and try to turn a nice semi-affordable car into a Porsche then tell everyone “sorry, it’s just expensive to be here. Not my fault!”

It's not a problem to me, that's the point. By saying I am a part of the problem, what you really mean is that my views are an obstacle to you getting what you want.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#46

Not surprising when you look at California's home prices. The median home sold from Marin County to Santa Clara County is $1M+. That's the same land mass as from Times Square to the Maryland border. https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/1440035534693232640 California is NIMBYism at its worst: the far left opposes more housing, the far right opposes more housing, and the center is sick of traffic from more housing.

> California is NIMBYism at its worst: the far left opposes more housing, the far right opposes more housing, and the center is sick of traffic from more housing.

It's the banality of evil.

It's not that homeowners are conspiring to create unaffordable housing, it's just that they all just care about the benefit to themselves of rising home prices and maintaining the comfortable exclusivity of their neighborhoods. Everyone hopes someone else is fixing the problem.

Collectively, each city wants some other city to build more affordable housing. It's not a political issue. It's the haves vs. the have nots, just as it's always been.

The only solution is to have the state organize a plan that forces many cities in the bay area to build denser housing is some of their prime locations -- I'm thinking like way Palo Alto's downtown and Caltrain station area is surrounded by single-family suburban houses. Some of which are on huge lots! Any areas surrounding public transit corridors like that should be immediately built up into multi-story housing complexes.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#47
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.

Lol if you think the net is outbound. Most of those people were replaced. Who else is going to pay the high rent? The only option when rent is too high for HENRY is to pack in as many poor workers as possible. Viva congestion!

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#48
post #19

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.

No clue what it is now but the state tax was 5.3% in the 00’s when we lived in mass. Prop tax was typical for house prices. It has a high tax rate reputation but this might be as bad as one thinks.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#49
post #37
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Given that I know the local authorities will drag their feet and it'll take 5+ years for anything to actually be lived in and most stuff will be expensive to live in - yes. But that's already happening.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#50
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not a problem immediately but that's the thing when you are talking at scales like this it is a matter of decades not years to forecast issues. If the remote work hypothesis holds true that means the biggest advantage silicon valley had, a high concentration of engineers and founders is no longer there it's dispersed all across the country and the competitive advantage begins to evaporate at the same time VC money is drying up because of an economic contraction.

You can continue to believe and argue that it isn't happening and that Cali is still a great place and continue to cover your ears and scream at the reality but the fact is that when I moved a year or so back the new church I started attending was composed about 1/4 of people that had left California in the past few years, with it moving to 1/3 if we include Oregon and Washington. (And no it's not some sort of sampling bias that Californians love my Church) all of them described the various problems with CA that make it sound pretty much unlivable. So continue to believe there is no problem. It seems that Silicon Valley insists on relearning the lessons of the rust belt.

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