California population size projected to stagnate
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- Covid made me realize how important being close to family was.
- Three straight years of serious wildfires, along with the general unease of a predictable rainfall pattern put me at unease.
- At that point I'd been working remote for 8 years. It took that long for me to feel confident I could easily get fun, well-paying jobs outside of the Bay Area.
- The Bay Area felt like a mono-culture despite it's marketing otherwise.
- The housing market was pretty silly. Got a lot more house for less money moving.
Things I miss:
- The produce is better in California.
- The restaurant variety in the Bay Area is superb.
- Harder to find certain type of nerd friends.
Surprises
- I don't actually miss the weather, and sort of prefer having seasons again.
- The schools are better where we moved. My wife is a teacher and was sort of floored by this. Both areas were "great" school districts, and I admit region to region can always have variance. Still, we didn't expect this.
I miss California so much, but then I grew up there.
Where do you have to do this? I've lived in several areas with snow (midwest, east coast, and Colorado), and never seen anyone shovel snow off of their roof. This sounds like an outlier case, not the norm for "leaving California."
In the midwest and east, snow shoveling has just never been a big deal in my experience, other than the occasional big storm that drops a foot or more (maybe once every 2 years).
People forget how big of a state it really is. My family friend was facing a four figure cost to dig out their Truckee cabin this past winter.
Ironically, being close to family is the primary reason why I haven't sold my house for seven figures more than I paid for it and nope-d out of CA (not the Bay Area though).
The schools are mediocre at best where I am and it just seems to me that it's not sustainable to have a functioning community with housing costs where they currently are, which implies that at some point I'll be living in either a non-functioning community or will have left a million dollars on the table by having not moved away sooner.
Housing is ridiculous. Utilities are ridiculous. Political issues are rampant. Homeless and crimes everywhere. Owning a car or anything bigger than a bike is a hassle and full of cost and regulations. Racial and political ideologues are everywhere including in schools and they have tremendous influence. One can lose their entire livelihood if they were found to have "wrongthink" by these ideologues.
Correct me if I am wrong on any of those because that is my impression after living in SF for a while. CA is great for vacations or if you have a stable 200-300k salary (except software, no other career can afford this unless you are in very senior levels). Otherwise imo, it isn't worth it to stay there. The big companies seem to agree and are moving out. The moment CA lose its only lure which is jobs, it will be a death spiral.
- Housing is ridiculous -> pay can also be ridiculous. And housing can be cheap once you move out of Bay or Los Angeles
- Utilities are ridiculous --> You don't really pay that much because of temperate weather
- Political issues are rampant --> Not sure what this means. I mean, political issues are rampant everywhere. Have you seen Florida ? Whole politics is based on around being "anti woke". Or Texas ? Ridiculous stunt (flying migrants, banning abortions). I prefer not to live in a Christian theocracy
- Homeless and crimes everywhere --> Do you get your news from Fox ? There is like zero homelessness and very little crime outside of very large cities. Even in SF, once you are out of downtown, there is very little homelessness. In fact, SF has some of the lowest violent crime rates
- Own a car and bike is a hassle --> LOL, what ? Is that why every family has multiple cars and bikes ? And is by far the leading EV ownership rates in the US ?
- Racial and political ideologues.... --> Again reads like a Fox news headline. Perhaps you prefer the book banning ideologies and "benefits of slavery" being taught elsewhere. My kid goes to a public school here and it is amazing the amount of effort is put in to be inclusive
- One can lose entire livelihood.... --> Can't even, insanely ridiculous
Sadly not too surprising if you have followed this forum over the last few years. It is still great for certain topics, but for several others the top voted comments are all just the standard talking points pushed to Fox News hosts.
Like I said, pay is only ridiculous if you are in software. For the vast majority of other profession, what is ridiculous are the prices and taxes levied on them.
The matter with politics might be subjective. But imo, all the stunts and stupid things the "Christian theocracy" are doing do not affect the majority of people living in Texas. The kind of regulations and political stunts in CA on the other hand directly affect the middle class. Affirmative actions and the DEI overreach have more effects on an average person's life than bussing migrants around and banning children's books. One is an inconvenience. The other potentially involves job loss and large changes in life. That is my view.
Also, before you jump to conclusion. I am a minority in STEM and I consider myself agnostic. The most extreme examples of the "Christian theocracy" you mentioned only happen rarely and personally I was never affected by any of them even though I should by the type of demographic they are allegedly targeting. In SF though, I am directly affected by the taxes and fees to pay for homelessness and DEI issues while still worried on my way home about crimes and whether my car's windows were smashed or not. And homelessness is still an issue even in the suburb like Brisbane and Daly City.
Food and water and medical attention were provided. Consent was obtained. Nobody was forced on the bus. Autopsy was inconclusive. This happened once in 30,000. Those are facts.
If the child died because she was put in an air-conditioned vehicle with food and water, then not much would have changed if she was to stay at the detainment facility where condition is just the same.
Here is a little-known fact you probably don't know: migrants choose which destination they want to go to, i.e. which bus they will board. Many of them took the bus voluntarily because they want to get to other cities for cheap and the bus is basically free. It is almost a public service for them. At the bus destination, often there will be arrangements to accommodate them, either by connecting them to their family, providing assistance, or routing to other destinations of their choice. Did you know that or you thought they were herded like cattle on a bus and dropped off in unknown locations that they know nothing about?
It's expensive but the economy is so dominant in so many areas it would take a long time to peel away the reasons people move there. There are a lot of pretty awful things about CA, but it has its draw for a reason.
Also the weather is insanely nice and the produce is so fresh and the food is good and the cities have all the city things you could want. Unparalleled maker scene, bars and restaurants, art and entertainment. There are things like housing and crime that drive people away, but I'm not sure any other cities do the other stuff so much better that you'd leave for the new city instead of to get away from SF. I'm super partial to NY but even I get that it's not wildly better in some fundamental way.
The funny thing, even if jobs left, a large amount of people who live here won’t. The land will just always be inherently desirable. A large contingent of people will always refuse to give that up. And if enough people leave at once such that real estate crashes, you’ll just see people move back here, because they can afford to again. So too with jobs— they go where the people are, not vice versa.
Whereas say, Detroit collapsed due to the auto industry leaving and white flight to the suburbs— California is #1 in the tech industry (SF), #1 in entertainment (Los Angeles), #1 in biotech and pharmaceuticals (Orange County / San Diego), #1 in agriculture, #1 in shipping (Los Angeles), #1 in military (San Diego), #2 in energy… This state simply can’t collapse from just one pillar falling. And again, unlike Michigan, there is no coastline in the US that is as near as desirable as California’s to live on.
I don’t live here because it’s affordable, or particularly well-run, but because I have family and friends here and I could not imagine living anywhere else.
See also the other 49 states.
> Housing is ridiculous. Utilities are ridiculous. Political issues are rampant. Homeless and crimes everywhere. Owning a car or anything bigger than a bike is a hassle and full of cost and regulations. Racial and political ideologues are everywhere including in schools and they have tremendous influence. One can lose their entire livelihood if they were found to have "wrongthink" by these ideologues.
Owning a car in most of the US is a socially-mandated hassle you must impose upon your life to succeed. I'm sitting in a car service lounge typing this, in fact. You can lose your entire livelihood in the US very easily by opting out of car culture, or losing your license, or missing certain payments.
Everything else mentioned is increasingly everywhere in the US. One person's ideology is just another person's god-given natural order of course (PaRenTal rIGHTs).
And maybe because it is Houston, but there is no problem being LGBTQ here or having progressive ideals. The local government is left leaning but the state is right leaning so they kind of balance out imo. I actually saw true diversity and freedom of expression in Houston compared to the SF's version of it where there are certain types of topic everyone has to tiptoe around. In Houston, even truly controversial opinions are still allowed because for better or worse, there are some people in power who share that opinion, no matter if it is far left or right. IMO, that is better but I understand this can be subjective.
Yeah, famously no hostile laws against queer people in Texas. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/25/texas-transgender-ki...
I said the state government leans right and the local government leans left and they balance out. Which is exactly the case why there is a lawsuit right now which they may win.
Your dishonest argument is just pathetic and honestly made the cause you support looks like trash.
There is lots of housing outside of the Bay Area and other expensive cities.
> Utilities are ridiculous
As in the rest of the country. Climate change and soaring energy costs isn't a California-specific problem. Look at the TX grid for example.
> Political issues are rampant
What does this even mean? Where in the country doesn't have "political issues"?
> Homeless and crimes everywhere
Again, there is a lot more to California outside of three square blocks in San Francisco and LA that the media is focused on.
> Owning a car or anything bigger than a bike is a hassle and full of cost and regulations.
What is the hassle other than the fact that you are paying slightly more?
> Racial and political ideologues are everywhere including in schools and they have tremendous influence. One can lose their entire livelihood if they were found to have "wrongthink" by these ideologues.
Again, this describes every inch of this country, and is in fact a lot worse in conservative and religion-dominated cities/states.
The one thing I agree with is that things are generally expensive, but then you are also getting paid more to make up for it (CA minimum wage is $15.50 for example, and it is even higher in several cities). So overall you have to decide if it makes financial sense for you vs painting a broad generalization. There is no haven for poor people in this country, and California at least has social programs.
If you want (1) cheap and (2) conservative, then the Bay Area is not the place for you, and it doesn't need to be. There are plenty of other reasons to move, like weather, social policies, jobs/career progress, access to nature, mountains/beaches/hikes/ski slopes, walkable cities, worker protections, LGBTQ rights, women's rights/healthcare, treatment of minorities, general quality of life.
And they're similarly more expensive than the majority of the US. Housing in Stockton [0] is more expensive than Houston [1].
>As in the rest of the country. Climate change and soaring energy costs isn't a California-specific problem. Look at the TX grid for example.
It most definitely is a California-specific problem. California is only bested by Hawaii for total energy prices, and is the most expensive in the continental US [2]. California also has the second highest hours of power outages.
California power is hilariously expensive compared to every Southern and Southwestern state. More than double in most cases.
[0] https://www.zillow.com/home-values/7266/stockton-ca/
[1] https://www.zillow.com/home-values/39051/houston-tx/
[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
If you look at the median household income pre-tax, CA is 84k while TX is 67k. Not that big a difference especially when you consider TX do not have income tax while CA does. Meanwhile everything in CA is nearly double the price. Is everything really affordable to the average Californians or it only affordable to the SWE circle?
> Estimates are not comparable to other geographic levels due to methodology differences that may exist between different data sources.
Here is a better source with comparable numbers also by the bureau for 2021, same year we are talking about:
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
Relevant numbers for states can be found on page 77.
As for the "why"...
Officially, poverty level is counted by triple the cost of food compared to income. Of course, that is now obsolete since people need more than just food. They need housing, utilities, etc. Most of those are much higher in CA than TX.
That is why the census bureau has SPM which accounts for these needs. Based on the SPM calculated by the bureau, CA has higher poverty rate than TX, 13.2% compared to 10.4%.
Using the official, i.e. the food cost only, then CA is 11% while TX is 12.9%.
Here is a nice SPM figure by states on reddit:
https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/123s1k3/oc...
Up to you how you want to take it. I was wrong in saying "everything" is double the price so let me take that back. Only housing and utilities are double or more, everything else is still more expensive but perhaps not to the 200% depending on where you live or get them from.
Housing and utilities are not ridiculous. A good 2000sqft house is 400k. PG&E is less than half CA price. The news shows you the anomaly market prices that nobody pays because everybody has fixed pricing which is about 14-15c/kWh. Homelessness and crime are basically unnoticeable. I can park my car almost anywhere and never worried about break in or theft and no I don't live in any special places. In fact the area I live in is actually in the "less safe" area. But I was there for nearly a decade and never had any issue. SF was the first city I was scared of walking outside alone or leave my car unattended.
Also, within Houston, the city kind of lean left but the state government leans right so overall, the political effects balance out. There is no such thing as "no white allowed" playdate in schools or DEI overreach like the ones I saw in SF. There is also no prosecution of LGBTQ people or minority harassment either. It is a very "live and let live" city where if you mind your own business, nobody will interfere.
On the other hand, I moved to SF and tried to stay downtown. Could not afford it after a while and felt seriously unsafe with the homelessness issues and moved to Daly City after. Things are still expensive there even when it is the "suburb". Rent is still 2k for tiny apartment. Utilities are still just as expensive. Car is now a necessity because by bus or train it takes double the time and also my work hours are not fixed, so I need to stay late sometimes. And no way in hell I am taking public transit at midnight. It is guaranteed to end in a robbery eventually.
A house is completely out of reach. I am in STEM, work for a top company in the field, at a very high skill position, and my salary after tax would never allow me to buy a house here unless I live like a student for the rest of my working life. Meanwhile, if I go back to Houston, I can have a house right now at this exact moment using just the cash I have. That is how much different it is. Accounting for taxes and the cost of living, I am living much poorer here in SF than I was in Houston. And I am sure I am not alone in this experience. It is not a coincidence that lots of people are leaving CA to go to Texas. Even the big companies agreed.
I will move out of CA eventually when an opportunity arrives. Doesn't have to be Houston either. I have been to different places and countries and I am fine with exploring new cultures and new places. Most of the time I found I can tolerate quite a bit unless things go to the extreme. I guess CA is too far on the extreme left for my taste.
For your questions? We don't want kids, we are firmly upper middle class. We bought a house without trouble or sacrifice. We are in an area not in PG&E territory so Utilities are fine. We are apolitical so skip a LOT of noise in news and social media. Homeless and crimes ARE everywhere, not just here? Our two cars are not troublesome to own. We are good at identifying and ignoring ideologues -- and we have not yet been discovered in our wrongthink and sent for livelihood-ruining re-education. (wtf are you even on about with this?)
We're lucky. Others struggle, I get it. Sucks. Our austere life choices and preferences favor it here quite strongly. Others, maybe not as much. That's cool. I'm not out rallying a cry against Wichita on some forum they frequent and trying to bend them to my own preferences. That's rude.
Sorry it wasn't for you. Doesn't mean it's not for ANYONE.
I'm a huge roller coaster fanatic, but I live in Portland, OR. The nearest park worth going to is Silverwood in Idaho, which is a ~8-hour drive. Alternatively is Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA, which is also ~10 hours away.
I'd also like to escape Portland's extreme dreary fall/winter seasons of nearly constant overcast clouds and rain, even if it effectively means permanent summer.
What's keeping me in Portland? Basically everything you mentioned. Technically, I'm in Beaverton, a suburb just outside of Portland, so I don't have most of the Portland problems which are similar to California problems but on a smaller scale. But also, both me and my wife have all of our close family and friends in Oregon. If we moved to California, we'd be leaving everyone we know behind.
Total: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/ixctmz/map_of_the_...
Per capita: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/ixgjit/since_someb...
My second choice for moving would be Sandusky, Ohio, so I could be right next to Cedar Point, as well as being closer to even more parks in that region of the country.
I'm just sharing this because you could move to around Vallejo and you'd just get a sign-error on the monotony, and realize it after moving.
Just my 2 cents...
Weather and proximity to a beautiful coastline.
Is there a place on earth where this isn't the case?
That’s like saying “why would anyone want to live in Germany or the UK?”
Obviously we have some challenges, but my feeling is that we are at least taking baby steps in the right direction w.r.t. the kinds of policy solutions we need (even if the execution is not always perfect and things don’t happen fast enough).
California on the other hand is supposed to represent the economic might of America, and its decline, however small (1) makes great headlines, especially from a political angle and (2) scares people because the image of American supremacy they have grown up with their entire lives is under threat.
Everywhere else has the same problems, but they aren't as bad.
Rent isn't as high, the homelessness issues are lower, the local governments are somewhat less ridiculous...
On a per capita basis, yes they are.
More importantly, the comment I was replying to was not limited to "homelessness" as the thing where CA was worse than elsewhere. Rent in particular needs to be evaluated relative to local worker earnings.
Only one of those states has weather suitable for living outside.
For example, I no longer have to step over human feces and used needles. My rent is literally half what it used to be.
I was paying twice as much to live in a place with less space and more unpleasantness, and I don't how how you make any of those "per capita" problems because everyone experienced them.
You could move to hundreds of places within CA and make the same claim.
my pet peve example is crazy agressive driving/general disregard for speed limits and on the road etiquette
the joke used to be „watch out for that corrolla driver” now it is „watch out for that tesla with out of state plates”
As an Oregonian, I'd welcome more California drivers. They know where their accelerator pedal is and how to use it.
For me, the joke is "Watch out for that left-lane driving Prius".
I think there's some sour grapes involved [0], and also the fact that it's a bastion of left-of-center politics makes it a natural target for right-wing media .
California's government - federal electives, state and many local have been making decisions and putting in place policies that we are now seeing the consequences of.
The pandemic didn't create the problem - it poured gas on the fire. The elected officials of the last 30-40 years created the problem. The housing shortage is 100% a government created problem. The homeless "problem" is 100% a government created problem.
We don't have to solve these problems - we can continue on as we are which is likely because it is the path of least resistance (accountability is hard for people and governments). But let's be honest about why things are the way they are.
Can you provide the units in which this "measurement" is made? What about other measures of government? How does California perform on those scales?
Should it be the overriding goal of government to appeal (or appease) those citizens who are already on the margin of leaving anyway? Or should it strive to better serve those who stay?
Unless they can predict every economic boom and bust, every political shift, every new technology and other growth areas and much more, this report isn't worth the paper it is printed on. In 2019 the forecast would have been the exact opposite, and in another 3 years it can flip again.
Old California was buying a cheap vw van for $800, getting a bunch of friends together and going on a surf trip to baja. Having fun and being unpretentious. New California is paying $30,000 for a vanagon and making videos of it by yourself to post to the internet.
This strikes me as a silly sentence, in multiple ways.
It puts a nice frame around issues. Median home price 830k per the article. Less according to an older census number: 573k.
This paragraph confused me. If I recall correctly, California has a high amount of welcomed immigration. Would that not continue to balance increase the population even if people leave?
Only up to a point. Immigrants don't want to deal with prohibitively expensive housing any more than anyone else. They may settle in California initially, but a lot of immigrants end up moving to other states with more affordable housing once they get established.