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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

#301
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where does one build 3.5 million houses? The housing needs to be where jobs / etc, are. With the resources of an entire state government, or a lot of private equity, this is very solvable. Take a place like Sunol, CA or Livermore, CA, either one about an hour east of San Francisco and trivial to connect to public transit. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.5871047,-121.8716321,3a,75y,... (California has nowhere to bui…

> Done. Solved. But they don't do it. Why? This is called the Napkin Fallacy . When you write down some solution to a long standing social problem on a napkin in a coffee shop, and then instead of asking "What is wrong with my solution, that it hasn't been adopted?" you ask "What is wrong with the world, that it hasn't adopted my solution?" The world needs a lot more people asking the first question rather than the s…

Recently a study evaluated one Canadian city's strong efforts to build housing. It was found that prices didn't go down because the builders colluded to build far less housing in the surrounding area, keeping overall supply down, and prices up. That's in their interest. The napkin solution is correct ... unless Marx is right about how elites behave.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#302
post #205

I hope less people live there, too crowded. Making western nevada and much of the mojave habitable would go a long way. Artificial rivers and lakes, importing sand and desalination (at scale to develop more sustainable water systems not on its own) and bullet trains would be ideal. The money and tech is there just not the collective will. Places like Parhump NV, Bishop CA and Reno,NV have huge potentia as population…

This seems like a bad idea.

Cali is not very dense, most of it is suburban sprawl. The bay would be much more livable if it was 5x as dense.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> During the periods of heat or cold, we now just peace out and travel, because we have ample cash to do so and still manage to put away for retirement. that's nice but is it a good long term solution? i presume you don't have any kids. i wonder how this approach would work once you have kids and they start school. or maybe you do have kids but they are much older and moved out or no plans for kids idk.

> i wonder how this approach would work once you have kids and they start school. Simple solution: don’t have kids.

Only a matter of time until someone replies with some rant about how having children is essential to the human condition.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#304
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Once again, you don't get to decide for me what 'the problem is'. You're just framing what you want as objectively what should be. But you're incorrect to frame it that way. You want what you want. I want what i want.

What you are ignoring is that you live in a society.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#305
My friends from IT sector left California exactly two years ago (just saw their memories on Facebook). There were a group of six. They did it on a private jet. There was no comment about housing prices, only about, I quote, "crazy commies took over the beautiful state".

I don't know a lot about California politics, but maybe housing crisis is just a symptom of something more?

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#306
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this take. I don’t live in California, but most of my family has this attitude of “California is the worst! Look how expensive it is.” It seems as if supply and demand has decided it’s a great place to live. Edit: Not sure why this take would upset anyone. I didn’t say it was necessarily good or bad to live in California. All I said is that the average price of a home seems to dictate that people enjoy…

Yeah, every time I go home to the Georgian suburbs I have to patiently explain that—while San Francisco certainly has its fair share of obvious and well-publicized problems—if it were really all that bad, people wouldn't be lining up to pay exorbitant amounts in order to live there.

Are they lining up really, any more? I know some tech companies are trying to coerce people back into the bubble, and force them to cram into a narrow valley in central CA, where high rises are generally shunned, just so they can spend 10-20 hours a week commuting into an open office distraction zone, but, remote work is sticky. People are not coming back in the numbers they were. And it's no longer difficult to raise money outside of Silicon Valley either. The next gen of startups will begin as remote companies and will remain as remote companies throughout their existence.

Feel like the cultural center of gravity has left CA and it's in the early stages of a long decline. Detroit once had similar prominence in industry as the valley did for the past few decades. Motor City was a booming hub of manufacturing and music. And over the course of a few decades, it deteriorated. Jobs left. Local government got dysfunctional. Manufacturing left. Crime soared. Houses abandoned. Property values fell on relative and absolute basis.

At any rate, CA is running on the fumes of its former self, when it was younger, more agile, less burdened by dysfunctional politics, had more opportunities for young people and young families.

CA is a naturally beautiful state. But it's got deep-seated issues and there's almost a sense of an unfixable malaise, living there.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#307
post #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

>the bugs Which US state doesn't have problems with bugs though? I know none hold a candle to Australia but it seems like each has its own unique problem with bugs.

Ah, I see you're yet to encounter Texas roaches. Additionally, Texas is number 2 on mosquito prevalence after Florida, along with other biting insects. As a bonus, Texas is also home to recluse spiders, whose bites can cause necrosis.

Texas is no Australia when it comes to dangerous critters, but of all the American states, it's in the top 2, and gives Florida a run for its money.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#308
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a longtime Californian leaves California, they make a big stink about it like it's a zeitgeist and parlance of our times. And they only move to Portland, OR or Austin, TX. There have been a few to move to New York City, but that is seen as selling out. Lastly, a handful to Colorado but no one has an opinion on that therefore they are ex-communicated until they return to either California, Portland, or Austin.

That's when a democrat moves. Republicans move to Arizona, Texas and Florida

[deleted]

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a country the size of Western Europe with climates ranging from tropical to frozen tundra most of which are full of cheap land and housing if you don’t mind living a bit out of the way… and you picked Texas?

Where would you choose to live with cheap land and housing where it doesn’t get extremely hot in the summer?

New England or the Midwest or the Rocky Mountain region.
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