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Comment by catiopatio | Hacker News Reader

Please don’t, unless you’re willing to confront your own contribution to the situation you’re fleeing.

Wherever you go, there you are.

As someone in Colorado watching the influx of Californians with a dread and frustration over the past 10 years, the majority of newcomers seem to vote and live exactly like they did in CA, creating the exact same problems in CO that they ran from CA to escape.

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Watching from Spain, what do you mean "vote and live exactly like they did in CA"?

Here in Spain more and more northern europeans come. I guess many of them are going to settle here (I get lots of questions about taxes and dealing with the spanish state, candid souls), so they contribute to the housing problem but I don't really see what they might import here that can worsen the situation besides their purchasing power.

Also, being Sillicon Valley one of the most productive places on earth, why companies don't involve themselves in politics about housing and city planning?

If I was some top head in such companies I woudl definitely consider it, as it goes directly against my floating line. If I manage to convince mayors that copying the netherlands onto the land around my offices I wouldn't need to pay so much and my engineers would be happier anyways.

They are basically swimming in cash, so IDK, they are involved in politics anyway...

San Francisco is known for being one of the most progressive areas in the country, and there's a common belief that progressive government policies led to the situation they are now facing.

Before anyone responds looking to argue, I'm not saying whether it's true or false, just stating that that's the perception.

I see. Is there overlap between "progressives" and "housing nimbys" in the US?

Yes, both directly (NIMBYism is generally worse in liberal areas) and indirectly (density makes everything harder and more complicated).

left-nimby's, as they're called, obstruct housing with price controls and other uneconomical demands on housing producers and buyers. Often they reject projects out-of-hand if they show any possibility of making a profit.

There's overlap of both progressives and NIMBYS and conservatives and NIMBYS.

Just as there are progressive YIMBYS and "conservative" (usually labelled "market urbanist") YIMBYS.

The left/right axis is inadequate to describe the dynamics of municipal politics. You need a second urbanist/conservationist axis to describe support or opposition for housing development.

Progressives cluster in dense areas (and/or perhaps density causes progressiveness), and density also causes greater NIMBYism. It doesn't necessarily follow that progressivism causes NIMBYism.

The mistake is that on municipal and land use issues it's a two axis political system.

It's not left/right, it's also urbanist/conservationist.

You will find those on both the left and right that for various ideological reasons end up at the same point of wanting to obstruct new housing creation.

> Also, being Sillicon Valley one of the most productive places on earth, why companies don't involve themselves in politics about housing and city planning?

Occasionally they do but the main power bloc in rich urban/suburban California is homeowners whose property taxes have been essentially frozen at low rates as their home values have skyrocketed. Anything the companies would do politically to help solve the issue immediately runs up against older voters who are well-organized and have nothing but time on their hands and huge amounts of equity in their homes.

This companies can burn cash like crazy. If they hire some smart consultants they can build a situation where the narrative would be current homeowners VS everyone else.

I don't have much experience but even I can do. I don't think the US is short of this people nor this companies short of cash to burn.

And they would do something good for once.

Edit: I remember watching documentaries about SV engineers living in vans ffs. I could get my life almost settled with a couple of years of such salaries.

Burning cash is not enough, and in many cases is counterproductive -- the takeaway is "Big Tech is trying to buy their way into our communities."

To be fair, that also explains almost the whole of Britain.

Californians are, perhaps unfairly, notorious for being shallow. This is reflected in, for instance, the story of the California homeowner who wanted his expensive solar panels installed on the side of his roof that faced the street so that they could be seen, rather than having them installed on the more efficient side that faced the sun, but was hidden from the street.

Politically, this manifests as fervent support for causes that seem good on the surface but have dire unintended consequences.

To be fair to Californians, the California constitution is a mess, and incentivizes a kind of aggressive crazy politics.

If you really want to know details (you don't want to know details), here are some articles by locals.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221006202807/https://www.press...

https://web.archive.org/web/20180113084809/https://www.ocreg...

Even more https://duckduckgo.com/?q=california+politics+is+a+mess&ia=e...

Silicon Valley's problems derive from the incredible income inequalities which derives in part by 1) land use decisions (which include artificially low taxes (ie. prop-13)).

Problems are caused by the rich and established of SV desiring exclusive enclaves of single family homes and not wanting any normal income earning renters to live near them.

People that move elsewhere and maintain this attitude will simply induce the same problems again.

The truth is people vote the same everywhere, we see the same nimbyism in Texas for example for decades, its just now finally catching up with increasing population.

Acting like all the issues are due to recent laws is a easy lie to fall for.

No, people don't vote the same everywhere.

> Please don’t, unless you’re willing to confront your own contribution to the situation you’re fleeing.

What do you mean? I've lived in Colorado and now live in California. Sure, it has serious problems but I'd say some of them are from population density. Millions of people living in small area causes issues. Housing prices? I'd want housing prices to go up if I owned. Taxes? That's a financial question, and the bay area offers world class comp in tech. Traffic? Also bad, but that's from attracting so many people. Crime and homelessness is a serious issue. But I don't think there are easy answers. I live in a safe area, and I would run into other political issues in different states.

That’s a lot of judgement to individuals without a lot of facts to back it up.

If California is broken, it’s not from the people that live there or leave because they can’t stand it the way it is. If another place becomes that way, it isn’t the people coming there that causes it (other than from the population shift).

Everything is crowded nowadays anyway, ant least in the cities. That’s an issue with there being more people in general.

This is a complaint with all forms of migration where someone seeks to escape their bad living conditions.

Generally those conditions are caused by the people who live in them - their culture and ways of thinking - even if they don't understand or can't acknowledge how.

Many people want to escape the consequences of their own beliefs, but don't want to give up the beliefs themselves.

Another example of, "You're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic."

Their belief in this context is: “I would like to afford a house and be somewhere less crowded.”

Would you advise these people should confront their belief system and the consequentiality of their agency that led them to this conclusion?

I think it's more that they're complaining that when everyone moves out to the sticks to be 'somewhere less crowded' - that place becomes crowded. Or at least more so.

And that the reason why the original place was so crowded is because people like them wanted to all be there, and the politics and other things there are negatively perceived by the people who DIDN'T move there.

Also, when everyone all the sudden starts buying homes in a previously not in demand are, the homes start getting difficult to afford, as demand is increasing. Especially for people who have been living there awhile already, and don't have the cash that the folks leaving the previously crowded areas have.

I've personally seen this same cycle happen 3 times in California (and PNW/Texas).

CA is the future. Transplants are just exporting it to your area.

Upvoted for truth

Sighed deeply for it too

Sad but true

What people who never lived in California don’t realize is that there are a lot of transplants from elsewhere. California natives tend to stay. The transplants do not. Many of these transplants tend to move back to their home state.

Also many of them are not liberal, if that’s what you were hinting

> the majority of newcomers seem to vote and live exactly like they did in CA

same thing happened to Austin and is starting to happen in Dallas

Did you know Colorado actually receives more people from Texas than California? It doesn't really make sense, because California is 33% larger than Texas, but it's true.

So you really should be blaming Texans more than Californians, and if they are ruining Colorado like they did Texas, you should call them out on it.

https://stacker.com/colorado/states-sending-most-people-colo...

I heard that exact same sentiment in the 1990s. I remember people in seattle complaining about people moving from california. (didn't check colorado at the time)

Yup, and look at Seattle now. You used to be able to buy a house in king county in the 90s for under 100k, an example of just one jarring change of many.

When I lived in Colorado in the late 90s-early aughts, plenty of people complained about Californians and Texans moving there.

If you think that is bad you should consider the influx that Colorado residents had to witness 170 years ago...

The natives were NIMBYs too, but the YIYBY settlers were more numerous and better armed.

Seattle of the 80's and 90's comes to mind, when they hated having people move north from CA. They now have traffic jams in Seattle just like we do in SV.

I'm amazed at how many new Californians we must be creating every year. Those leaving the state are doing so in numbers able to impact the housing market and political situation in seemingly every state, city, and town across the country. All while still increasing our population every year.

Truly incredible.

So true. In France, with Covid, many of the IT crowd moved from Paris to cities like Bordeaux or Nantes, much nicer destinations.

They brought their votes with them. Those towns took a turn to the woke-left. Took barely a year to see it translate into higher crime, petty theft, etc. Now people are fleeing it again.

lol - that's like begging people to not cash a giant tax refund check to 'help the gov't'.

I get that it causes angst in the destination, but that is the last thing on anyone's mind when they're considering such a disruptive life change. They're moving because they're miserable right now. That it might make someone else slightly uncomfortable politically later?

And that's ignoring the whole 'no single raindrop causes the flood' issue. Beating up on any individual doesn't make a bit of difference. These changes are being driven by macro-economic shifts.

On a side note, what is also likely contributing? Nasty, nasty air pollution 1/4 to 1/2 of the year in the SF bay area due to all the fires.

Trust me. We don't vote like how the rest of CA votes.

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