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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what it will take for people to start leaving the state. And it's going to be the wealthy who leave first.

I’m approaching retirement age, and that’s been the fantasy of many for as long as I’ve been alive: CA either falls into the ocean, or people leave it in droves. And yet for all its problems, the population of CA keeps going up. Even if people leave, someone else is more than willing to take their place.

Population declines for 2nd year in CA

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/us/california-population-....

AND, there is a social ritual that has developed. We now have the "FINE, GO." cake which is shared with those departing at a say-goodbye party.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fine+go+cake&t=osx&iax=images&ia=i...

I think net domestic migration is negative for California, so it’s already happening.

For perspective, I live in Arkansas and my family and I live in a 2000sf single-family home on 0.5 acres. Our mortgage is <$800/mo. My income isn’t significantly different from my coastal counterparts.

Nice

California has the largest economy in the U.S. and (if it were its own nation) the fifth largest in the world, with agricultural production/processing representing under 3% of total state GDP. There's lots of money and lots of strategies for mitigating water problems, including things like desalinization on a scale never seen before.

In contrast, Arizona is relatively poor and landlocked. It seems like they're far more likely to be the canary in the coal mine.

Arizona is a fast growing state but it's hardly a fair comparison. A better comparison would be Texas or Florida, which people on the coasts seem to turn their noses up at.

Both are growing at roughly 3 times the pace of California, with Texas predicted to surpass California's GDP in under 20 years (Perhaps faster, if things accelerate). If you look at the East Coast situation, e.g. Florida and New York, it's much more damning, FL's population surpassed NY only a few years ago, and its GDP will likely surpass NY in less than 5 years (1.2T vs 1.9T). Not sure what will happen with the water situation but it seems like the final nail in the coffin of bad policies that have sent CA into a downward spiral.

I don't think they were trying to say Arizona is the alternative California people would move to. I think they were saying it's the state that's going to feel the effects of prolonged drought first, because they have less access to seawater to desalinate and fewer resources to try and buy what little water is left compared to California.

Exactly, thank you.

"Both are growing at roughly 3 times the pace of California"

I'm sorry, where is that number coming from? 3x growth anywhere in the USA vs California would be majestically impressive!

I found:

Growth : (1yr, 3yr, 5yr)

Texas : 7.35%, 2.24%, 12.32%

California : 7.17%, 8.06%, 16.69%

Florida : 6.45%, 8.04%, 14.91%

Is the 3x growth in a different statistic?

https://www.deptofnumbers.com/gdp/california/

https://www.deptofnumbers.com/gdp/florida/

https://www.deptofnumbers.com/gdp/texas/

GP was talking about population, not GDP. Do you have those numbers?

> In contrast, Arizona is relatively poor and landlocked. It seems like they're far more likely to be the canary in the coal mine.

This isn’t a great bet. Arizona had to solve this problem long ago and already has a good water rights system to cut out the most egregious users quickly as the Colorado river goes through its drought categories. Farmers aren’t guaranteed effectively free water with seniority over others willing to pay like they are in California.

Farming in Arizona might die, but the people are more than rich enough to continue residential usage with the large portion AZ gets of the Colorado river.

> In contrast, Arizona is relatively poor and landlocked. It seems like they're far more likely to be the canary in the coal mine.

<<< New Mexico waves >>>

ps. NM is much much poorer than AZ (but also has less people)

Desalination is an ecological catastrophe, and it costs over $1,000 per acre-foot, and that's before the cost of water delivery to the end user. For comparison, my local irrigation district charges ~$150 per acre-foot, delivered.

Desalination doesn't work for California.

1) You can make it not be a catastrophe.

2) People that really want a green lawn will pay.

The wealthy can afford to stay, and the poor can’t afford to leave. Watch the middle class, as those are the most likely to move first.

Laughable. The wealthy are going to leave the best weather in the Western Hemisphere and the best culture in the United States and the best restaurants and the best job market and...

Stop fooling yourself. The wealthy are going to double-down on California. They already are.

This goes against all available evidence. The rich are the only group who are still on balance migrating into California.

Do you have a source? I think your statement is only true of domestic migration

https://lao.ca.gov/laoecontax/article/detail/265

PPIC regularly covers this topic but most migration data hasn't really fully incorporated COVID effects yet.

https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/whos-leaving-califor...

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