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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

#101

Post by yibg »

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…

Thing is, people aren't asking you (and people like you) to do anything, but simply to stop actively blocking things (like building new homes). You're getting the vitriol because you're simply sharing your views. You're getting it because based on your views, it seems like you support measures that actively blocks progress for others.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#102

Post by strangattractor »

Obviously click bait title - comes out once per month - usually FoxNews. But I whole heartedly encourage people to leave. Housing is expensive - earthquakes - liberals ick. Much better in Texas. You can own whatever gun you want. Want to shoot animals - Texas has hogs galore - you can hire a helicopter and shoot the from the air. Life couldn't get much better:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ir6LDRH7J0

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#103

Post by ActorNightly »

wysewun wrote: 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

If you moved to Texas specifically to get a bigger house for your money, then of course you are going to hate it.

We moved to Austin-adjacent and downsized on the house. We put away about 100$k from the sale of our previous house, and used the rest for downpayment, netting us a The rest of the time, weather is nice, plenty of good food, plenty of things to do.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#104

Post by jeffbee »

ryanSrich wrote: post #40
jeffbee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

What service specifically do you believe that comparable states provide but California lacks? Considering the fact that the bulk of taxes and services are local, I am moderately satisfied with fire fighting, law enforcement, education, libraries, parks, sanitation, transportation, and the state poet laureate. Each could be improved in some way, but I think that is true in any state.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#105

Post by random314 »

reaperducer wrote: post #97
wysewun wrote: 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

We moved back in 6 months. That must have been expensive! You had to eat the second six months of a year lease on a house, maybe lost your deposit, too; plus you paid to move an entire family from California to Texas; then paid again to move from Texas to California. Then had to find another place to live in California and pay another deposit there. Having helped a friend move from California to Texas recently, it so…

Typically, you can break your lease with one month payment. And you don't lose your deposit. That's not how deposits work.

Probably cost 4K, not 40K.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#106

Post by reaperducer »

random314 wrote: post #105
reaperducer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We moved back in 6 months. That must have been expensive! You had to eat the second six months of a year lease on a house, maybe lost your deposit, too; plus you paid to move an entire family from California to Texas; then paid again to move from Texas to California. Then had to find another place to live in California and pay another deposit there. Having helped a friend move from California to Texas recently, it so…

Typically, you can break your lease with one month payment. And you don't lose your deposit. That's not how deposits work. Probably cost 4K, not 40K.

Typically, you can break your lease with one month payment. And you don't lose your deposit. That's not how deposits work.

Actually, it's how many of the leases I've had worked, and I've lived in dozens of states.

Probably cost 4K, not 40K.

It cost my friend $11,000 to move his one bedroom apartment from Southern California to Texas last year using Mayflower. And he was just one person, not a family.

Moving an entire family from California to Texas and back costs a minimum of $20,000; unless you're traveling like the Beverly Hillbillies.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#107

Post by vogt »

philsnow wrote: post #98
wysewun wrote: 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

Boot up google maps, go to east Texas, turn on satellite view, and zoom out a bit: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.162224,-97.8577697,1179315m/... That easternmost part of the state is the "piney woods" and it's lovely compared to the concrete island that is Dallas. The forests have a mitigating effect on heat.

The westernmost part of the state as well: I live 3 hours outside of El Paso near big bend national park at an elevation of ~4000. The winters are chilly at night; the summers are MUCH better than Dallas/Austin/Houston.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#108

Post by theptip »

kneebonian wrote: post #50
theptip wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mon…

I think you have to remember to apply marginal thinking and consider sampling bias.

At the margins, the people who move away are the ones who were already unhappy with “issue x” but had not actually left.

Now that “cost of moving” decreases, or “cost of staying” increases, the cost/benefit of moving becomes positive for those marginal residents, but stays negative for those that love where they are.

Clearly plenty of people don’t find it to be unlivable, indeed it’s still objectively ($/sqft to buy) one of the most desirable places to live in the country even despite the problems.

This is also completely consistent with small towns seeing a large influx of people fleeing CA; it doesn’t take a high % of the most-populous state leaving to make a substantial difference in all of the small desirable towns.

I do agree that the remote trend needs to be followed closely; it’s great for senior engineers at big companies, but I wonder if startups and juniors at large companies are soon going to realize that mentoring and rapid collaboration is really hard remote, and we’ll see the pendulum swing back a bit. Or maybe we will solve those problems and the agglomeration effect of the Bay Area fully dissolves.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#109

Post by dctoedt »

wysewun wrote: 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

> So few days of good weather [in Texas].

That's why I tell disbelieving Californians that we have better weather in Texas than they do: When we have nice days, we appreciate it, whereas when they do, they don't even notice .... :-)

(Source: Spent several years in California long ago.)

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#110

Post by wonderwonder »

dionidium wrote: post #100
wonderwonder wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. Everyone gets an equal say. Seems like not enough of the voting population agrees with you and as such no new houses are built. America is a huge country though, plenty of very affordable housing elsewhere. Everyone doesn't get to just have what they want where they want it though, that's capitalism for you.

> Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. In the United States we have a Constitution that enumerates a set of Rights about which nobody gets to vote. It doesn't matter if you (or even 99% of all people) think it should be illegal for me to express this opinion, for example; you don't get to vote on that. Private property rights in my view quite clearly fall under this rubric and it's only because of a few laugh…

I agree for the most part but government is always going to have the power to regulate what property in city limits can be used for. This prevents things like me opening a shooting range or a night club in a single family home neighborhood. Laws are put in place to prevent a worsening of living conditions for people that already live somewhere. 100% with you on free speech though. Government has no right to control what we say. I would go even further and ban companies being able to fire people for expressing unpopular or even racist opinions away from work. I'm a jew and if a dude is a Nazi on his free time but professional in the office he should remain unfired. Applies to speech only, if he's breaking the law via assault, arson, etc. then sure, fire him.
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