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California’s quality of life is the worst in the country?
- magd 9y agoStill better than living with the religious nut jobs.
- hueving 9y agoUnless you're rich of course. Then it's fantastic!
- travoc 9y agoNot bad if you’re poor, either.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Overtonwindow 9y agoMischaracterization in the title. Actual title, which I think matters, is: "California’s quality of life is the worst in the country: Says who?" Perhaps correct? It does change the tone.
- daenz 9y agoIt does set a tone, but after reading the article, I failed to find a justification for "says who?" There doesn't seem to be a defense or rebuttal for the quality of life assessment.
- masonic 9y agoThe "Says who?" addendum is only on the one version they put on the web (they use varying headlines on their 10+ member papers). The original print title is right in the URL: california-has-the-worst-quality-of-life-study-says/ I added "US News" to clarify the source of the study. Please, admins, consider the possibility that some of us use honest forethought in entering a title. (The most recent change of adding a question mark is the most editorializing choice of all.) [Update]: the Mercury News archive edition title for this article (Page 1A) is CALIFORNIA’S NO. 50! In quality of life, study calls us Worst Coast I was erroneous in calling the original web posting title the "original print title".
- neuronexmachina 9y agoFrom the article: > In case it makes you feel any better, while California stinks in terms of quality of life at least it didn’t rank dead last in the overall rankings. We came in at No. 32 overall, although that’s well behind New Jersey (at No. 19), Florida (at No. 15), and Nebraska (at No. 7). Ouch. > The bottom line? The state performed well in terms of its economy, coming in at No. 4 (hello, high tech boom) but it fared terribly in categories such as citizen opportunity (No. 46) and fiscal stability (No. 43) in addition to the dreaded quality-of-life assessment (that scarring No. 50). Of course, as anyone who has tried to buy a house in the Bay Area knows, fiscal instability is basically our motto at this point. I think it's also interesting that Mississippi, Arkansas, and New Mexico were in the top 10 for "quality of life," but bottom 10 overall: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings
- sdubois 9y agoIt would be interesting to see the correlation between overall ranking (or economy) and quality-of-life ranking. Looks like many comments point out that they're often opposite.
- EZ-E 9y agoFrom a foreigner point of view who keeps reading about California, it seems both like a fascinating and terrifying place. So advanced yet so backward in some ways
- plusbryan 9y agoCare to expand?
- ihsw2 9y agoThe rampant homelessness and drug use for one, the putrid mess that is downtown SF for another.
- DavidSJ 9y agoSan Francisco is one beautiful city with one very ugly downtown.
- briga 9y agoWhat's so bad about downtown San Francisco?
- ihsw2 9y agoThe stench of urine and feces is dominating, the random exposure to homeless folks mental problems is a daily occurrence, drug paraphernalia (eg: heroin needles) and trash are scattered throughout. SF downtown is an absolute dump. Go ahead, take a 30 minute walk just north of The Mission. Turn a corner and you'll find a homeless dude standing with a vacant look on his face and pants around his ankles, letting his penis sway in the morning sun. Turn another corner and you'll find someone shooting up with reckless abandon. Turn another and you'll be an uninvited witness to a homeless dude verbally and physically assaulting someone for no reason. LA, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, etc -- at least these have their size to distribute the problem, SF on the other hand is so small and its city council so progressive that there is a critical mass of it all.
- sverige 9y agoCalifornians: Please don't move to Iowa or any of the other top 10 overall. Please stay and fix your own state.
- iambateman 9y agoDon’t worry, the #1 quality-of-life state is North Dakota so clearly the methodology is wack. Have you ever heard someone say: “man, when I finish my internship, I hope I can go to North Dakota where there is lots of happiness?” No. Because it’s -40° there half the year.
- matmo 9y agoAs much as I'd like to buy a house outside of California, I can't imagine living in cold weather constantly. I really need sunlight/warmth, and I can't help but feel like I would miss California's weather.
- jjeaff 9y agoLuckily, there are plenty of other states with similarly nice weather.
- ojbyrne 9y agoSpecifically? The thing that I like about California is that it’s warmer than the rest of the country in the winter and cooler in the summer, generally expressed by the locals as “if the temperature is below 60 or above 80, everyone complains.” Even inland California is too damn hot.
- pedrosorio 9y agoThere are no other states that have mostly Mediterranean hot/warm summer climates (Csa/Csb) - Oregon being the exception if you enjoy a colder/wetter Csb than what you find in the Bay Area: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/US_50_states_K%C3%B6ppen.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/US_50_st...
- sjg007 9y agoIt’s not that bad considering modern technology and all. Get a winter hobby or sport!
- kelp 9y ago
- almostApatriot1 9y ago>The state performed well in terms of its economy, coming in at No. 4 This isn't surprising. The reality is California's good economy, relatively good school system, attractive West Coast appeal, and high influx of immigrants make California VERY competitive (i.e. overcrowded), which brings down the quality of life for all. This is an end result of sorts of our global society. A California will always exist.
- sjg007 9y agoWhat does this even mean? Your comment is vague and nonspecific. California chose its path at the polls.
- question_that 9y agoDo you think those moving away from California have learned a lesson or will they vote for similar policies and politicians wherever they go?
- paulirish 9y agoSlightly amusing that on the Quality of Life Rankings page [0], the hero image they went with is of.... California. 0: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/quality-of-life https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/quality-of-...
- nodesocket 9y agoI've mentioned this a few times here on HN, but I fled California (San Francisco) in January for Nashville, TN and couldn't be happier. I moved over my California LLC and businesses to a Tennessee LLC (no state income tax). People for the most part are super friendly (almost awkward friendly), and that southern hospitality is really a thing. Costs are out of control, lawmakers and California state laws are backwards and anti-business, taxes are high, and open borders / sanctuary cities (my personal political opinion) are detrimental.
- enraged_camel 9y agoCounterpoint: Tennessee is very religious and also backwards as hell[1], and if you aren’t white you will have a difficult time fitting in. [1]Just one recent example: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/tennessee-lawmakers-pass-god-trust-school-bill-53929916 http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/tennessee-lawmakers-pass-...
- freejulian 9y agoCounter-counter point: the valley is filled with over inflated egos and developers whose sole business model is stealing people’s private data to sell ads. They tend to think tech wouldn’t exist without them when in reality their only contribution to the world is a few crappy web frameworks. Edit: looks like I struck a nerve with the valley script kiddies. Keep on downvoting. You’re the reason n-gate.com was created.
- convolvatron 9y agothose things can both be true
- masonic 9y agowhose sole business model is stealing people’s private data to sell ads Well, a few actually do make things or provide identifiable services. They just don't get much press.
- nodesocket 9y ago
- mattnewton 9y agoCame back from walking along the beautiful Santa Cruz coast this afternoon and read this. All I can think is this is a genius way to slow down the immigration rate until legislation and housing developments can catch up :)
- joering2 9y agoHave you ever been to Angel Falls? Or Parque Nacional Henri Pittier? Or Bahía de Cata beach? Well, all those places are stunningly gorgeous! And in Venezuela. So what's your point?
- tehlike 9y agoI bet there are plenty of coastal areas with similar effect. East coast was nice, for me, for example. If you like all seasons, they might be more interesting than cali.
- mattnewton 9y agoI grew up on the East Coast actually. I vastly prefer the weather, the culture and the economic opportunity of the Bay Area. I know its got huge problems, and how people like me exacerbate them, and I can’t afford a house here, but there is no where I’d rather be right now.
- tehlike 9y agoI grew up in a foreign land, with four seasons, and i feel the same about Cali. This is probably the place i will grow old. But i also acknowledge not everyone is like me. For many, Texas seems like a good place too.
- DrScump 9y agoI take it that you went nowhere near downtown Santa Cruz.
- mattnewton 9y ago
- 27182818284 9y agoIf you are a tech person, I'd say you should seriously consider the Silicon Prairie. For example, it doesn't surprise me this article emphasizes Nebraska. Whereas this article mentions not owning a home in California, you can readily afford a home out in the Midwest. If you don't want that, grab a two-bedroom apartment that costs you less than a $9,00 per month. Insane commutes don't exist. Places like Kansas City have Google Fiber and other places like Lincoln and Omaha don't have Google Fiber, but still gigabit Internet or even 300Mbps Internet plans (for $60/month) For a while, the fastest growing company in Nebraska was a tech startup called Hudl (https://www.hudl.com/)--which https://www.hudl.com/)--which you really can't even call a startup anymore since they're big enough to be building their own buildings now.
- enraged_camel 9y agoKansas is awful - don’t move there. Governor Brownback’s insane low-tax plan has starved government services and thoroughly ruined the state over the past decade.
- newnewpdro 9y agoCitations would be helpful...
- enraged_camel 9y agoHere: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/sam-brownback-kansas-budget-override.html?referer=https://www.google.com/ https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/sam-brownback-kansa... Brownback’s tax plan was so awful for the state that Republicans called him out on his bullshit and overrode his veto of a tax increase bill. Article has more details and links.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- trowawee 9y agoMy wife and I spent seven years going to school and working in Omaha. It's a nice little city, but if someone valued the benefits of urban life (restaurants, sports, social events, public transit, etc.), I think they would eventually be disappointed. We left Omaha feeling like we'd basically finished the city, like it was a level in a game - in the 3ish years after broke-college-student status, we had tried pretty much every interesting restaurant, checked out the social events that were available to people in the post-college, pre-kids bracket, and there just wasn't much novelty left. We moved to Chicago for work a few years back and we still haven't scraped the surface of life here. Are there problems with Chicago? Of course. But the quality of life is dramatically improved for this sample size of two.
- sehugg 9y agoHere are the criteria: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/quality-of-life https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/quality-of-... Among the measures used to evaluate states' natural environments are drinking water quality, air quality and total toxic chemical pollution per square. The ranking also considers how much each state puts its citizens at risk for long-term, chronic health effects from pollution. Social environment, on the other hand, investigates how involved people are in their communities. Two of the measures, community engagement and social support, are based on surveys where people shared how often they participate in community events and how often they spend time with family members, friends and work colleagues. Political involvement was also determined by evaluating average voter turnout at the 2016 presidential and congressional elections. North Dakota -- a desolate wind-swept plain littered with fracking wells -- is #1 for Quality of Life, which makes me seriously question the metrics used here.
- ajross 9y agoIndeed. To put it more bluntly: the social criteria seem almost purpose-designed to punish immigrants specifically. Put more mexicans in a state and virtually every one of those measurables is going to drop. This is a measure of whiteness. Now, sure, you could make an "objective" case that these immigrant communities are less involved in traditional community and employment structures, pull down voter turnout numbers, and just generally don't fit in well with the, ahem, Normal Americans. But that would be vile, so USN doesn't go there. Instead they cook the books to make Stuff Done By White People the metric for "quality of life".
- goawayracists 9y agoFuck off you hipster racist.
- ars 9y agoThat says more about you than about the study. Have you ever lived in a place like that? With real community? Neighbors that care about you? Who know who you are? Who notice if you are having an issue? Who go out of their way to help you if you need it? Could you, right now, walk over to a neighbor and say "I need to go to xxx for reason xxx, could you watch my kids for 2 days?", and expect them to either say yes, or help you find someone who can?
- briga 9y agoDoes this apply to tech workers in the Bay Area? Because it seems like the quality of life should be very high with what they're getting paid.
- Baeocystin 9y agoWhen you take the cost of living in to account, the QOL on the peninsula sucks. I live in Gilroy, which is ~40 miles south of SV, and like it a lot. But I also almost never have to drive north.
- birken 9y agoI'll spare you the effort of going through this because I went through the methodology behind it: Qualify of life is based on 7 factors: Natural Environment (50%): - Drinking Water Quality (13th) - Low Industrial Toxins (20th) - Low Pollution Health Risk (45th) - Urban Air Quality (50th) Social Involvement (50%): - Community Engagement (44th) - Social Support (38th) - Voter participation (49th) The whole Social Involvement section, which is 50% of QOL, is basically completely bunk. The first two are based off surveys that I'm sure have methodology issues, and who cares about voter participation? My quality of life isn't affected by whether or not my neighbor votes in the presidential election of which your vote in California has no impact. I also have no doubt if voter participation was adjusted for demographics, named age and race, California wouldn't do so badly. The air quality stuff is fair game, but California is a big state and there are lots of places with better air, in addition to the fact that I can think of 50 things which impact my "qualify of life" more than the things listed: Traffic, Parks, Restaurants, Walkability, Bikability, etc.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoI left California last September. Moving someplace cheaper allowed me to get back into housing. That was all I expected to get out of it. Other than getting off the street, I didn't expect significant improvement in quality of life. I moved to a small town that did not have all the stuff I wanted. I expected to kind of put up with it in order to be able to afford housing. But after getting here, our mantra has become "Thank god we have moved to civilization." There is no bag ban here. The library system here is better than anything I saw in California. Public transit is better. There are multiple things open 24 hours a day within a short walk from my rental. Unemployment is high and there is a homeless problem, things I would like to try do something about. But homelessness was high all over California and I was one of the homeless there. I really love the place I moved to and I am just jazzed to be here. At this point, I can't imagine going back to California. The problems here look solvable to me. The problems in California look entrenched and like they can't be solved without some things changing in terms of state policies. That seems unlikely and it seems to me that even if someone can figure out how to fix it and somehow pull it off, the transition would be painful. I really liked California for a lot of years. It saddens me to feel this way about the state.
- eecsninja 9y agoWhere did you move to? I do agree that many of the problems in California will not be easily solved.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoI'm in Southwest Coastal Washington.
- kumarm 9y ago[There is no bag ban here] Seriously? Single-Use Carryout Bag Ban a concern for you?
- DoreenMichele 9y agoYup. http://michelerebooted.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-lawful-awful-california-bag-ban.html http://michelerebooted.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-lawful-awful...
- beebmam 9y agoI'm 33. Literally no one my age or younger I know owns a home unless they live in a smaller city somewhere in mid-america. I'm a senior engineer at a large tech company. I cannot afford a home where I live unless I want to live in a shitty condo, which I do not. I cannot work remotely, so moving is not an option unless I want to find another job, which I'm considering. Once baby boomers start retiring and moving to assisted living homes, a large supply of houses will enter the market. This should hopefully alleviate some of the cost issues. But millennials are a ticking time bomb. So many millennials have no hope for lucrative careers, unless they're engineers or in finance, which is a small percent.
- kelp 9y agoI suggest lobbying your state and local representatives to allow fast and easy approval of building more high-density housing and to upzone your neighborhood. The reason California is so expensive is because the generations who already own homes have long asked to maintain the status quo with low height limits (most of San Francisco is 40 feet!) and density limits. This creates an artificial shortage. And those homeowners have somehow created a political coalition with lower income renters afraid of gentrification by offering them things like rent control and token amounts of subsidized housing. The thing is, if you do the math, it quickly becomes obvious that there is no world where we create enough subsidized housing to make a dent in the problem. And rent control works to keep people in their homes but at the expense of everyone else. Subsidized housing is a lottery, and always will be in California. We don't suggest buying lottery tickets as a solution for income inequality; we shouldn't for housing inequality either. The only viable long-term solution is relax zoning laws, and make new construction approvals easier and faster. SB-827 is a start in the right direction.
- nodesocket 9y agoI could be wrong, but I don't think the OP is asking for more high-density (and low income) housing.
- jeffbax 9y agoThis. If SB-827 doesn't pass, we'll know that California's priorities are not with the young/it's future - it's with those who were lucky enough to get in the right place at the right time. I'm not very hopeful, and the insane cost of living/owning a home is the primary reason I've pretty much given up on moving there at this point.
- IAmEveryone 9y agoThis is a bit weird... "Quality of Life" is, in my understanding, a synonym for happiness. But just asking people to rate their happiness doesn't really count as research. So this appears to be a two-step process: Find certain objective factors, such as time spent with family or environmental factors that are good determinants of peoples' reported levels of happiness. Next, rank areas according to these factors. The first part is obviously useful, because it sets specific goals to inform policy that otherwise doesn't really know how to make people happy. But the reverse step seems unnecessary complicated. And while I wouldn't dismiss the results completely just because they are counter-intuitive, I do believe people tend to do well on judging their own happiness. And there'd be a lot of people moving from California to North Dakota if the results are completely true.
- newnewpdro 9y agoPure comedy. Being homeless in coastal California confers a better quality of life than having an apartment in most other states in USA.
- purplezooey 9y agoThe older generations that have owned houses for 20+ years are the problem. Seen Lafayette or Orinda lately? They oppose all development, call affordable housing "the ghetto", and are of course protected themselves by prop 13. Heck they even elected a Republican assemblyperson.