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Comment by tehlike | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes i wonder... Washington doesnt have the income tax, but it feels much better there.

Am i imagining this?

Well the population is about 20% of CA's and it's much greener and cooler.

California lacks a planning structure. Until recently it was pretty much a land of misfits from the east coast. They should have consolidated local governments long ago and drawn urban growth boundaries. Instead the path they took has resulted in an utter mess.

To me california has a bunch of problems that seem to be growing over time. Makes you wonder where that tax money is going. I am all for paying more taxes for the common benefit, on things that makes sense, but homeless problem, fire problem, infrastructure all seem utter mess...

The big ticket items are Medicaid and teachers.

you mean pensions?

It's definitely better here in WA in many ways. We left CA last summer after 15 years, and I would never go back.

That said, I've heard that the biggest issue in this state is old infrastructure and buildings that would basically disintegrate in the next big earthquake. Seismic retrofitting wasn't a thing here until pretty recently.

I've been reading a book about the Cascadia fault that is fascinating and terrifying:

https://www.amazon.com/Full-Rip-9-0-Earthquake-Pacific-North...

“Just don’t think about it” is actually a rational approach to the earthquake in WA issue, because if the subduction zone goes, the tsunami will wash everything away.

Some would say the problem is Californians fleeing the state, settling elsewhere...then creating the same problems that created California.

It's not enough to physically move, there needs to be a change in mindset that goes along with it. Generally speaking, if you've moved somewhere because it's better, then whatever they're doing there is working. Could it be better? Sure, but it could also be a whole lot worse.

I was thinking along the same lines. I live in a state with less government (and less proportional revenue), we don't have the kinds of problems California does.

I live in Missouri we don't get paid as much as people in California but we don't have their problems here. I live near Ferguson where the riots took place. Peacefull now. Most good IT jobs are in Ballwin.

At least on the fire front, Washington doesn't have the desert-forest interface or lack of rain that CA does. On most other fronts we have the same problems as other states, writ large. Hard to compare given how diverse (demographically, geographically, etc.) we are.

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