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Comment by aluminum96 | Hacker News Reader

> The story also turns out to be in part about why California, which had a growth streak dating back to the gold rush, saw it broken in 2020, when the population shrank by 182,000 and caused a first-ever loss of a congressional seat.

Everybody seems to have a personal theory about demographic change in California. My conservative parents think it's woke social justice warriors, my activist friends think it's the lack of housing, and apparently this author thinks it's legal bureaucracy run amok. It would be really nice to see some evidence the next time this claim is made...

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> My conservative parents think it's woke social justice warriors

I know you aren't claiming that's true, but for anyone who thinks it is true, and since you asked for evidence, here are some bits of it.

Demographic change in California isn't really different than other similar states. California's racial and ethnic demographics are [1] pretty similar to Texas [2]. Most of the west and southwest is getting less white, with few exceptions.

Both states' populations (and population growth) are primarily concentrated in their cities, with rural areas continually emptying.

The only difference is overall population growth rate, which has declined in CA, due mostly to economics, and specifically the very high housing costs, which tend to inhibit immigration by lower and middle income workers more than higher income workers.

1. https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/

2. https://demographics.texas.gov/Infographics/2021/Redistricti...

I don’t know how you could argue that the biggest driver isn’t lack of housing. That’s going to be most people’s biggest expense.

I don't see how housing could cause a net migration away. The number of houses keeps going up. Unless you think that house inventory is shrinking (because growth of vacancies, etc outpace construction) at most housing prices should just determine who lives there.

I think likely the number of people living in existing housing stock is going down. I read somewhere that more than half of the rent controlled 3 bedroom apartments in San Francisco are occupied by a single older person (why leave your $1500 per month 3 bedroom apartment?). I've noticed that the single family home neighborhoods I've lived in have gone from 1-2 parents and 2-3 kids in the house to older couples or single people living in the house. And it's not just people that stay due to prop 13 -- when houses go on the market they often get bought by single people.

This is a good point. I’ll also add that California is not one big city. There are parts that are doing really well economically, and other parts that are doing terribly. Housing may be somewhat cheap on those economically deprived areas, but they’d be cheaper still in other states with better job prospect. Or, someone who grew up in California may end up leaving the state because their chosen career path wouldn’t allow for them to ever purchase a home here.

Though I agree with you about housing, if you are making an argument for bureaucracy you'd probably assign bureaucracy as the cause of a large portion of high housing costs as well.

Hi I just left CA. SOCAL is turning into a 3rd world country with trash and homeless everywhere. Policies that allow naked homeless machete waving people to kidnap people from the street biting them in the neck and then released the next day. Want to have a gun to protect yourself? Too bad there’s a war on guns so only the criminals seem to have them. Call the police on somebody meandering into your home? They probably won’t come. And don’t protect yourself because the state might charge you. The woke SJW is getting out of control. Some other state is now getting my tax money. The weather was great, though.

Now why is that such a catchphrase?

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