Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where? • Hacker News Board

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#461

Post by Proziam » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

formerchamp wrote: post #436

kaikai wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you proposing that Henderson is safer than these large cities because there's less gun control, rather than other factors?

100%. The safest cities in America have the least gun control. Maine passed constitutional carry 5 years ago with much resistance and last year was voted the safest place to live in America. Meanwhile cities like Chicago with the strictest laws are murder capitals. Liberals then say but the guns are coming from X, Y, Z! Well why aren't X, Y, Z murder capitals? Let's deal with the root of the problem and clearly it's…

Just to get my personal bias out of the way: I'm pro-gun, and strongly pro-individual freedom across the board. That goes up to the extent that I don't even care what types of weapons someone owns, so long as they don't use them to harm others.

That said, the violence problems in Democrat-run cities is not because of the guns, nor is it due to gun regulation. There were a slew of poor governmental decisions that have led to massive inequality, poor social conditions, and fostered an us-vs-them culture through the militarizing of police and criminalizing of the poor.

It turns out that if people feel cornered with no way to improve their lives or escape their poor situation, they resort to organized crime or other desperate measures.

TLDR - Crime is primarily driven by social circumstances. Criminal culture is cultivated generationally by those circumstances.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#462

Post by tasty_freeze » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:03 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #83

[flagged]

In support of what jedberg said, the Texas State Board of Education reviews school books and votes on which books to buy, and has the power to get the book authors to change books to their liking. That board, with the help of the Governor, was packed with creationists. Science books had to "teach the controversy" and treat creationism as being as valid as evolution. And guess which religion's creation story is the one chosen? It wasn't about science, it wasn't about religious tolerance; it is about their desire to see government run by their evangelical religion.

The board chair was for many years was Don McLeroy. He is a dentist without any particular educational pedigree. What he had going for him was zeal to promote the cause, nothing more.

It wasn't just science books affected, of course. History books cut out Jefferson to make room for Reagan and Phyllis Shlafly. When you are far to either side, even centrist information looks biased. The SBOE believed the textbooks had terrible liberal bias and needed to be fixed. If you are an American student and have textbooks, they are far from liberal.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#463

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

Daegalus wrote: post #455

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Washington has no State tax Surely you mean income tax. Oregon is the state that lacks sales tax and makes up for it with an income tax. Also, I'm not sure why your grocery bill would go down compared to California. Moving from LA to Bellevue, I noticed groceries cost more up here. Both states don't apply sales tax to groceries, at least. It also costs a bit more to eat out here vs. LA, at least at the low end. Pro…

Eating out compared to the bay area is cheaper, but not by a lot, i say about $10-15 for similar quality food and service. For a similar place in California that I pay $75 plus tip and tax and all that, i pay about $65 here in washington. Not cheap, but cheaper bit a little. Groceries were very expensive for me, and I tried to shop smart with Trader Joe's and Luckys (cheaper than Safeway/Sprouts/Whole foods). I would…

I think LA in general is cheaper than the Bay Area, so we aren't comparing apples to apples here. The nice thing about LA is that fresh produce is much easier to come by, there is more diversity in vegetables and the quality is higher. Seattle and the East side are just so so in this department.

Likewise, I was living in Westwood LA (near UCLA), food for students is priced cheaper (and also has a bit more diversity). If I could live in the U District with a kid, I would totally go for that since eating out would be much cheaper.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#464

Post by davidw » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #398

davidw wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt it. And at a statewide level, you'd have to look at news like the small-minded governor excluding legal refugees (something that other very red states like Utah haven't done). But look up San Francisco's racial makeup vs Houston's and... you can make the case that there's at least a place in the same city for a lot more people in Houston.

> But look up San Francisco's racial makeup vs Houston's and They're practically the same if you swap the black and asian populations. This makes a lot of sense: Asian immigrant populations came from the west coast, usually SF. Black populations started in the southeast, and its much easier to migrate from Mississippi to Texas than Mississippi to San Francisco.

San Francisco's black population fell by half at the same time that Houston's remained steady.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#465

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:05 AM UTC

Keverw wrote: post #144

Ohio is losing people too, called brain drain. Was reading that a senate report said Ohio's best and brightest are leaving, especially the more educated. I could see how moving to Texas or Florida would be appealing, warmer so no winter blues, friendlier to businesses, less taxes and simpler tax structures and some cities have more tech than others too such as Austin. I know Michigan is in a similar situation too wit…

> > I'm surprised tech companies don't invest big in the midwest,

You already answered your own question:

> I could see how moving to Texas or Florida would be appealing, warmer so no winter blues, friendlier to businesses, less taxes and simpler tax structures and some cities have more tech than others too such as Austin.

> I do see things like warm weather and walkability attracting people.

People look for cheap when they can’t afford something. People in tech right now can afford to buy what they want, they don’t need cheap.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#466

Post by jdhn » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:08 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #357

jdhn wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Somehow in the 49 other states that don't have Prop 13, people aren't priced out of their homes from taxes. Allow me to introduce you to the great state of New Jersey. People here are absolutely priced out because of the property taxes, especially older retired couples and low earners who may have a house but hit hard financial times. A $400k house will probably have property taxes over $10k.

NJ has Abbott districts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district It’s a tax to try and equalize resources for all schools, and is very progressive in sense. Other states let poor areas have poor funding for schools, whereas NJ requires richer areas to send funding to poorer areas to try to give the poor children a chance. I actually think this is an admirable goal of NJ. NJ also has one of the worst unfunded de…

As a former resident of New Jersey, I'm aware of Abbott districts, and trying to place the blame them for NJ's high property taxes is absurd. It's not a separate tax, it's simply redistributing school funds from existing tax income. As for the amounts of funding the districts get, here's what it says in the wiki article:

Abbott district students received 22% more per pupil (at $20,859) vs. non-Abbott districts (at $17,051) in 2011.

That is a HUGE amount of money being spent regardless of district classification. As for the pension problem, please do not underestimate the ability of the NJ government to kick that can down the road as hard as they can. I firmly believe that they will do anything they can to not solve it until it's too late.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#467

Post by Supermancho » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

dfsegoat wrote: post #4

Sonoma County, CA here. We've lost more people from our county than any other in the state between 2017-2018 [1], and it is only continuing. From the few of these people I have spoken with - anecdotally: - None left because of the fire risk, specifically. [though some obviously did - 2] - Most left because of the cost of living: $600k avg home price. - Some also left because of political and human environment: We hav…

Those kinds of troubles are the same reason people leave other areas I know well - Most of Orange County/LA County, CA and King County (Seattle)

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#468

Post by jelliclesfarm » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #452

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what repealing prop 13 means..do you know the wording of prop 13? Why should vacation homes be taxed? It’s is an asset. Imagine.. You buy a diamond ring..would you be asked to pay a use tax every time you wear it?

That’s not what repealing prop 13 means..do you know the wording of prop 13? Yes. In addition to following the flurry of news articles every time some politician dares to bring up Prop 13, I grew up in the Bay Area, and in fact I studied Prop 13 along with its consequences and potential changes while at university. If you'd like to be pedantic, your words were "And then they try to change prop 13". Nobody (at least n…

In this forum, they did.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#469

Post by barry-cotter » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

tmh79 wrote: post #413

zionic wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire idea is preposterous. The solution to affordable housing is oversupply of housing. Gov should incentivize new construction to reduce prices and let the market fix it.

Strong disagree, the solution to affordable housing includes a very large amount of private/free market housing, but the free market won't really address the needs of people below 30% of the median income. Additionally, good affordable housing is one of the best anti poverty tools that we have. IMO the long term solution is robust private market housing construction for the middle class, and a robust public housing c…

> the free market won't really address the needs of people below 30% of the median income.

It will if it’s not illegal to build. SROs are illegal. Boarding houses are illegal. Houses below a certain minimum are are illegal.

https://www.economist.com/special-report/2020/01/16/what-is-...

> From 2013 to 2017, Tokyo built many houses as the whole of England.

> House prices in Tokyo are now 9% lower than they were in 2000, while in London they are 144% higher, adjusted for inflation.

Re: Goodbye, New York, California and Illinois – Hello where?

#470

Post by jimmaswell » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 3:13 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #309

dfsegoat wrote: post #4

Sonoma County, CA here. We've lost more people from our county than any other in the state between 2017-2018 [1], and it is only continuing. From the few of these people I have spoken with - anecdotally: - None left because of the fire risk, specifically. [though some obviously did - 2] - Most left because of the cost of living: $600k avg home price. - Some also left because of political and human environment: We hav…

Forcing homeless services into an area and the subsequent homeless people entering your neighborhood is the politically correct 21st century version of blockbusting[1]. I suspect this is probably why Amazon, not exactly a friend of poor people, is putting homeless shelters in their offices, so they can lower the surrounding real estate prices and more easily expand[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting […

Drifting the topic but I've wondered why they don't section off some good wilderness land to let homeless people make a kind of wild west type town for themselves. If I was homeless I'd certainly rather live off the land in that setting with a nice cabin even without electricity, catch my own meat, and generally be able to be self-sustaining than sleep on concrete and panhandle.