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Comment by merrywhether | Hacker News Reader

While I love living in California for various reasons (moving here from the East coast), I can’t help but wonder to what extent the gig economy is papering over the stupidity that is current housing policy, postponing the inevitable collapse until after far too many people have been consumed by innocently adding a “side hustle” or two trying to help make ends meet.

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My own impression is that you likely think it's being "papered over" because you live in California. If you lived out here in flyover country you'd probably be able to see that for a lot of people, there has already been a collapse of the old economic order. Things for a lot of people right now are not all that great around where I live.

A lot of them would love to be able to deliver groceries. Even that in some areas would be too risky though with the opioid epidemic being what it is around here.

I’m not saying that things aren’t bad in a lot of places (I mentioned that I’m originally from the East coast, and have seen different status quos in different places), and I tried to be as non-proscriptive in my comment as possible. I was just struck because one of the main subjects lived in Sacramento, and I feel like a lot of these services are “homegrown” to the state.

I see what you are saying, but as far as I know this is happening everywhere. Jobs have centralized and you are paying a premium for the opportunity. Otherwise service jobs are mostly what is left. While these apps are less common we certainly have the same pattern all over Europe.

There's no papering over now. There may have been years ago. But there simply isn't enough to go around. Between 2011-2015 SJ added 500,000 jobs and built 65,000 housing units. Not even making a dent in the demand.

I think that's right, and it's compounded by the additional problems California creates such as occupational licensing hurdles. From the article:

> She worked as a therapist in other states, but a move to California required more classes and exams, right as her oldest was born.

That isn't a strictly California issue: I remember an article discussing the massive rise in licensing requirements from professional associations. It is in the nature of guilds, regardless of profession, to attempt to restrict growth in the number of practitioners. Link them up with state licensing authorities and you get situations like that. I think all such boards/requirements should be national: not sure what is magically unique about Californians' therapy requirements over any other state.

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