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

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

#521

Post by enad »

GhettoChild wrote: post #190
mbesto wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI - Austin is as blue as they come (and way less of the neoliberalism you see in SV). Houston from what I can tell has become much more liberal too (partly because a large influx of Katrina refugees). Hot take - with all of the migration to Texas, this state will be blue in the next 10 years. The only "conservative" things you find in those areas is (1) big trucks (2) guns (3) tobacco (4) sports. Not much different…

I actually used to live in rural California and now live in Texas and I found Rural Californians to be MUCH more conservative than your average Texan just that Texans love to over compensate a lot.

I disagree.

I grew up and lived as an adult in central and rural California (and the Bay Area) before moving to Texas.

I thought I was pretty conservative, like many in rural California.

But coming to Texas it was shocking how liberal I was. Not in anything specific, but in the overall. Texans and California’s government and voter just don’t even think about the same kinds of things. What is perfectly reasonable in California is completely foreign in Texas and vice versa.

The big example: the taxpayer. In California I never thought about them. Who’s going to pay for this great new law or public policy? In California we never ask. In Texas, everyone knows: the taxpayer.

No conservative one in Texas is going to support a law, no matter how good, that the taxpayer isn’t going to want to pay for.

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

#522

Post by Spooky23 »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #474
mghfreud wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that property prices will stay the same. If prop13 is repealed, I do not think that will be the case.

Property in CA is speculative and fluctuating. One cannot accept paying taxes based on assessed value. Property market is a volatile market. It is the equivalent of gambling. Would it make sense if our taxes on the roof over our heads are pegged to Wall Street or stock exchange indices? When property taxes have to be imposed based on fluctuating speculative assessed value, how would people on fixed income and pension…

Your hypothetical old people utilize their stored equity via a loan, just like you draw from your pension. Reverse mortgages are a common way to do that. Or, you sell and downsize into a property or place that you can afford.

Real estate markets are fairly liquid, and assessors always have a process to grieve your assessment based on market or other conditions.

California is way too protective of the property owner. Carrying costs in terms of taxes are frozen in time and anyone can walk away from a mortgage. Stock options are what keep the machine going.

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

#523

Post by micmil »

barry-cotter wrote: post #469
tmh79 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 200…

Anyone using Japan as an example of housing prices does not understand Japanese housing.

Zoning in Japan is done at a national level, not local. Once an area is designated for housing, housing goes there. Because of this there is a constant flow of new housing, which drives the price of old houses down.

This is not possible anywhere zoning is done at a local level. Anytime one person has the ability to stop another from building you immediately create NIMBYdom and where the NIMBY exists, more housing does not because the NIMBY cares about nothing but their own property value. But that also feeds into the insane American idea of housing as an investment rather than a place to keep birds from crapping on you.

Until the NIMBY is eliminated, and housing is no longer sold as an investment, housing costs will not go down.

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

#524

Post by Spooky23 »

jedberg wrote: post #379
Spooky23 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, there is a lot of foreign investment in California real estate which just sits empty. I get ads from agents that "specialize in finding Chinese buyers" which is code for "people who will pay more than asking and not care what condition the house is in". Or more simply, “money laundering”.

Well not exactly. A lot of it is that China only allows their citizens to hold so much private wealth, so the wealthy find ways to get their money out and hold it elsewhere. California real estate (and western real estate in general) is a good place to hold it because of our stable economy, solid legal system, and you get something tangible (the land and building).

So as a rich Chinese person, you invest in western real property as a vehicle to make it appear that you don’t control money that you are not entitled to by law, or move it out the reach of the banking or taxing authority.

... that’s money laundering!

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

#525

Post by gamechangr »

stevenwoo wrote: post #349
BurningFrog wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually one of the things I miss the most in the Bay Area is conservatives. I don't know a single one that's out of the closet! To me, that's really really broken. I'd love to live somewhere "purple", where people of all opinions coexist peacefully. Do places like that still exist?

I worked one day a week in an office in San Jose and a guy wore his MAGA hat to work the day after Trump won in 2016, he got about 25% of the vote in Santa Clara county so plenty of them here. There are also a few Trump emblazoned trucks/houses if you happen to spend much time in rural areas outside of San Jose/San Francisco. Also, my local little town newspaper had a front page story about a couple that were GOP sup…

[flagged]

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

#526

Post by micmil »

vineyardmike wrote: post #503
kelnos wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that in most areas the government is primarily voted in by existing landowners, who don't want more housing, and don't care if lower-income renters are being forced out. The non-landowners are either not abundant enough, or only plan to live here for a short enough period of time that they don't bother to get involved in local politics.

While this is the whole "NIMBY" thing... is that really a problem? No one complains that Americans can't vote in Britains elections, to set their laws. The whole point of voting is that the people who actively live there get to decide what happens to their city.

Yes, that's a problem. Nobody that bought a home on the vague notion that they HAVE to make money off of it when they sell it will ever vote to have a homeless shelter built across the road.

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

#527

Post by LeoTinnitus »

inetknght wrote: post #124
LeoTinnitus wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the water? One of the main things that scared me out of Texas living is it's too hot and the water is algae tasting.

I currently live in Houston. I don't drink tap water directly. It goes through a brita water filter. After that, it's generally fine. As for too hot... I 100% agree. I'd move if I could keep my job. I want to move north where it's cold. But I don't want to move where people are.

I feel like North Carolina is the sweet spot right now. I live in Wisconsin so it's hit or miss on summers and winters being too cold or too hot. NC has very comparable summer weather and warmer winter weather, also it doesn't have absurd cost of living like the west coast or NYC.

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

#528

Post by micmil »

hiram112 wrote: post #498
Daegalus wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll chime in and say that I just moved from California to Washington in September of last year. While its not a huge change, its enough to make a difference. Factors on why I did it: - Housing costs #1. I got into a rent controlled 2 bedroom 1100 sqft duplex unit. It was ok, but the landlord sucked and the place was very unmaintained, and i was paying $2800 a month. No yard, no garage, tons of homeless around diggin…

> Political climate was getting intense. Things were being taken to extremes, and I was honestly afraid for my safety if I accidentally interacted incorrectly with the wrong parties. Can you explain this point a bit more? Are you talking about political tensions, e.g. Antifa beating you up if you dared wear a MAGA hat, or am I misunderstanding you.

That's 100% what they mean. They're a magahatter that can't keep their mouth shut but don't have the balls to open it in front of anyone that will call them on their bullshit.

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

#529

Post by stevenicr »

mrep wrote: post #492
intopieces wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hope you understand that it’s “progressive” policy which has caused crime to explode Crime has not exploded in California. California’s violent crime rate rose in 2017—but it remains historically low. The statewide property crime rate decreased in 2017. Crime rates vary dramatically by region and category. Violent crime increased in a majority of counties but property crime decreased in most counties. [0] [0] https…

I don't trust any property crime "stat" in any moderately sized city. Every single person I know whose had property crime happen to them which is in multiple cities and states doesn't even bother reporting it because the cops won't do anything so it's just a waste of time.

Most of the property crime is see from various places around here the past couple years has been theft and damage under $500 - not enough to make it worth filing an insurance claim, and police reports don't seem to do much around here, sometimes they tell you to call back in a day or two if you do call.

So there is plenty of crimes posted on the fbook / nextdoors / stuff like that were people are feeling victimized / but these are not going to show in any crime stats anywhere. Unless fbook has some AI run through and tabulate this stuff and report it by area one day..

You also can't see the impact from some stats. A neighbor recently had a naked guy pounding on her back door, they did get cops out for that one, arrested him from hiding inside here storage shed... with screenshots of the whole ordeal posted in a group - lots of people were a bit traumatized, yet you would see in the crime stats '1 arrested for trespass' - which does not give you a good idea of the impact on the community of this data point.

trying to reply to comment below, but I guess the thread is at max threshold.

I like to point to data for calming things down sometimes like the gun violence debate.. but often times there is much missed in looking at data from a far.

Plus, a couple of mayors ago, our city mad all the cops change how they report crimes (choose the softer things to charge people with so the stats look better) - and, officers were actively asking people not to press charges for things, go so far as explaining the process, and how we would spend hours in court and they would be off the streets doing important stuff for hours if we pressed charges, and that the person was not going to be in jail anyway..

Maybe things are different elsewhere and maybe in some places they have some of the same tricky data reporting, until we have all robot cops that run the same software in all cities, some of these things are going to be difficult to compare.

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

#530

Post by andrewprock »

xyzzyz wrote: post #392
andrewprock wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean by a "just-so" story. Can you expand on that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story Humans are really good at crafting narratives explaining complex and uncertain reality. However, just because something sounds superficialy plausible, doesn't mean it is true: it is usually easy to craft an alternative theory, just as plausible as the one at hand. For example, the narrative of Prop 13 being the root of all California's housing problem very much depends on e…

The issue has been studied extensively. There is plenty of stuff available out there if you go look.
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