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As a non-mormon Utahn that lives in California; the reason things are so well in Utah has nothing to do w Mormonism and more to do with a focus on value creatio

As a non-mormon Utahn that lives in California; the reason things are so well in Utah has nothing to do w Mormonism and more to do with a focus on value creation as opposed to social issues, regulations, and taxes. California has been working very hard to kill it's golden goose for a long time. Reasonable people are going to other states.

garraeth 6y ago
You could argue that it is due to Mormonism: "Deseret was proposed as a name for the U.S. state of Utah. Brigham Young—governor of Utah Territory from 1850 to 1858 and president of the LDS Church from 1847 to 1877—favored the name as a symbol of industry. Young taught his followers that they should be productive and self-sufficient, a trait he had perceived in honeybees."[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_(Book_of_Mormon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_(Book_of_Mormon)
0xcde4c3db 6y ago
> California has been working very hard to kill it's golden goose for a long time. Reasonable people are going to other states. People have been saying that sort of thing since the '90s, if not earlier. If California has been working so hard for so long to ruin things, why are we still talking about places being the next Silicon Valley, and not the next Austin or the next Research Triangle?
- alexnewman 6y ago
  Silicon valley was built over 80 years. Obviously it's going to take more than 20 years for it's decline to be visible but it's clear to me that it's very far along
- austincheney 6y ago
  Well perhaps it helps to think of it in terms of raw numbers. California is bleeding about 60,000 people per year just to Texas. My city in Texas is averaging a growth rate of about 22% decade over decade having doubled since 1990 to surpass San Francisco in population and will likely surpass San Jose in about 15 years. On pace with the population growth is growth in diversity and average household income. That means that as the population increases the wealth distribution and access to purchasing and property increases for more people than naught. It’s not all peaches and cream in this fast growing city though. The tremendous growth results in colossal strain on traffic and infrastructure, but ownership of a large house with a yard is available to most people. That’s not such a big deal when you’re single, but it’s huge when you have kids. The demand for increased economic security likewise dramatically increases when you have kids. California is growing in population though, but very slowly and without equivalent growth in wealth per capita. That is largely a result in personal wealth primarily tied to home ownership and home ownership declining generationally in California. I take from your comment that you are less concerned with raw numbers and more concerned with vanity labels and trends. If you are a well funded founder perhaps California remains the place to be, but the numbers indicate it’s no longer the epicenter of economic growth that it certainly was in prior decades.
  - no_wizard 6y ago
    If there is anything I would say is going to hurt California Even more (frankly it already is), it’s available affordable housing and the ability to build it. I understand that Prop 13 (I believe it to be 13) was passed for reasons that felt very real at the time, but it’s created a system that devalues heavily the otherwise natural churn of home ownership. I don’t personally think it’s taxes, or any particular brand of politics (per se, as I know this is a political issue, I just mean relative to this), but that, in essence, that is destroying California slowly from the inside. Both Oregon and Washington are similar politically and Oregon is very close in taxes but they aren’t seeing any population outflows like this. I firmly believe it’s due to the issue of housing before any other factor. I’m trying to gather more data to back my assertion but all personal experiences of people I know and others I’ve met who have moved have cited this as one of the major or the single biggest reason for having moved
    - shoxty 6y ago
      I believe you are correct. You may find the work "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George of interest and what has come to be known as the Land Value Tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax Prop 13 is killing California, repealing it and replacing it with a Land Value Tax, in my opinion, would fix it.
  - 0xcde4c3db 6y ago
    > I take from your comment that you are less concerned with raw numbers and more concerned with vanity labels and trends. In this context, I care about trends that happen over the course of decades and labels that become popular in recognition of those trends. I don't know why you're bringing up "vanity".
    - austincheney 6y ago
      I bring up vanity because when it comes to things like growth or value people are either talking about actual numbers or decoration.
  - 6y ago
- adventured 6y ago
  > People have been saying that sort of thing since the '90s, if not earlier. And it's happening: people are fleeing the state. "California likely to lose congressional seat for first time in history after 2020 Census. Californians moving out lead to cut in Golden State’s political clout." "other states like Texas are expected to gain as many as three new seats" https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/03/california-lose-congressional-seat-reapportionment-2020-census/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/03/california-lose-congr...
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > And it's happening: people are fleeing the state. Poor people are leaving to other parts of the USA slower than rich people are moving in from other parts of the world; California has net in-migration despite net domestic out-migration. This is bad in terms of domestic political power, of course, but it's directly a consequence of economic success. It has lower net growth than many other parts of the country, but that is not just a matter of migration but also the lower natural growth rate that usually accompanies greater wealth. And it's not one of the places actually shrinking because people are actually fleeing, not being displaced by richer people—there are a number of states where that is true, but CA isn't one of them.
    - alexnewman 6y ago
      Check again. I left. many of my buddies at Google left. People are going back to where they came from
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > Check again. I left. many of my buddies at Google left. I'm familiar with the statistics, the issue gets raised here every couple months or so. You and your friends from. Google aren’t the whole universe. Sure, some well-off people leave and some less well-off people move in, but that's not what is dominating the aggregate statistics.
shakezula 6y ago
Hard disagree. I live in Utah, grew up here, and there's an absolute population boom going on right now because of tech. It's one of the reasons our unemployment rate is so low. Tech has been good to the valley but it's not without its trade-offs. Houses in West Valley that only a few years ago would have sold for $120k-$150k are closing for to $300k+.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Hopefully the state can get ahead of this problem and prevent the same issues we’ve seen in Silicon Valley. Housing is largely a red tape/nimby issue and not a real estate issue.
  - mrkstu 6y ago
    The main problem is most of the livable land is concentrated in the ‘wasatch front’ mountain range, and the valleys running north south along it. This keeps the available developable land within drivable distance permanently constrained.
  - shakezula 6y ago
    We don't have much red tape but we definitely get a lot of nimbyism from the LDS church and its members. They have a stranglehold on our state that most people don't understand. I hope we're able to keep rents from ballooning, but I'm not optimistic.
Voloskaya 6y ago
> Reasonable people are going to other states. People with similar belief than you about "value" (really, only money) creation and regulations/taxes are going to other states. This has nothing to do with being reasonable. Someone perfectly reasonable could think better safety nets and less inequality is a worthy trade-off for less growth.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > Someone perfectly reasonable could think better safety nets and less inequality is a worthy trade-off for less growth Except California also has among the highest levels of income inequality and highest cost-of-living adjusted poverty rates in the entire country: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-california-poverty-rate-20180913-htmlstory.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversatio... It's not just about potentially different priorities about growth versus safety nets. It's also a question of whether you believe that you should double down on the policies that have made California and New York among the hardest places to live for the middle and lower middle class. In places like California and York, so much money meant to go to "better safety nets and less inequality" actually goes to providing secure middle class lifestyles for college educated white people. California, for example, is drowning in teacher pension debt despite having some of the highest state taxes in the country. But over 60% of California teachers are white, in a state where just 23% of schoolchildren are white. So when people look at white-hispanic test score gaps (California having among the largest gaps in the country), and vote for more education funding, the actual impact on reducing inequity is extremely attenuated. Likewise, on housing policy, people act very concerned about it in New York and California, but how much money and legislative effort goes to actually providing housing for people who need it, versus paying salaries for college-educated administrators and bureaucrats, versus propping up housing prices in middle/upper middle class racially segregated neighborhoods? I'll note that LA teachers are demanding that as a condition for schools reopening, charter schools be shut down: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-26/citing-coronavirus-risks-l-a-teachers-union-calls-for-new-limits-on-charter-schools https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-26/citing-c.... Charter schools are, of course, a policy that's supported by the majority of the black and hispanic people that actually have kids in the school districts. (White Democrats are the only group where a majority oppose charter schools and vouchers.) This is a really telling illustration of what the real priorities are. If, for the taxes Californians and New Yorkers pay, they actually got a robust safety net, good schools, and good transit, I imagine that a lot fewer people would leave.
didibus 6y ago
I'm in Seattle now, but when I moved, I considered California or Utah as places to work. The reason were purely driven by the geography of the land itself. Both California and Utah are beautiful places. And they have cities which are fun and interesting to live in. California turned me off, because it just seems like it has reached max capacity, there's just too many people living there. Utah lost to Seattle for other reasons. I guess my point is, I think all I cared about was the geography and temperature profile, and the lifestyle the place would bring me. The actual company I'd work for came after these. So in my opinion, Utah is doing well because of its geography, same for California. People just like it there.
- _curious_ 6y ago
  "...I guess my point is, I think all I cared about was the geography and temperature profile, and the lifestyle the place would bring me. The actual company I'd work for came after these." This approach/reasoning is too often overlooked. Smart and capable people get to pick and choose where they want to live.
aaomidi 6y ago
The major reason anyone is leaving California is housing prices. Anything else is just icing on the top of the cake. Housing isn't an issue that goes away with value creation. I'd bet Utah would suffer the same way if a storage container starts costing more than $2000 a month.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  In fact, one might suggest that housing is an issue that gets amplified by value creation...
raffraffraff 6y ago
Mormons in Utah had access to free education and cheap housing. These things are huge. I know a bunch of Mormons and Formons (former Mormons) who moved there because of a free Brigham Young University education and stayed to work at (and help found and build) local startups because housing was cheap. Edit: perhaps not "free" education but as-near-as, for any American. That free education was only available to Mormons.
- xxandroxygen 6y ago
  Yep, “as-near-as” free is right. A semester’s tuition at BYU is $3k for Mormons, and it doubles to $6k for non-members (though that’s still pretty cheap, relatively)
- camhart 6y ago
  BYU isn't free for anyone--not even members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

garraeth 6y ago

You could argue that it is due to Mormonism: "Deseret was proposed as a name for the U.S. state of Utah. Brigham Young—governor of Utah Territory from 1850 to 1858 and president of the LDS Church from 1847 to 1877—favored the name as a symbol of industry. Young taught his followers that they should be productive and self-sufficient, a trait he had perceived in honeybees."[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_(Book_of_Mormon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_(Book_of_Mormon)

0xcde4c3db 6y ago

> California has been working very hard to kill it's golden goose for a long time. Reasonable people are going to other states. People have been saying that sort of thing since the '90s, if not earlier. If California has been working so hard for so long to ruin things, why are we still talking about places being the next Silicon Valley, and not the next Austin or the next Research Triangle?

alexnewman 6y ago
Silicon valley was built over 80 years. Obviously it's going to take more than 20 years for it's decline to be visible but it's clear to me that it's very far along
austincheney 6y ago
Well perhaps it helps to think of it in terms of raw numbers. California is bleeding about 60,000 people per year just to Texas. My city in Texas is averaging a growth rate of about 22% decade over decade having doubled since 1990 to surpass San Francisco in population and will likely surpass San Jose in about 15 years. On pace with the population growth is growth in diversity and average household income. That means that as the population increases the wealth distribution and access to purchasing and property increases for more people than naught. It’s not all peaches and cream in this fast growing city though. The tremendous growth results in colossal strain on traffic and infrastructure, but ownership of a large house with a yard is available to most people. That’s not such a big deal when you’re single, but it’s huge when you have kids. The demand for increased economic security likewise dramatically increases when you have kids. California is growing in population though, but very slowly and without equivalent growth in wealth per capita. That is largely a result in personal wealth primarily tied to home ownership and home ownership declining generationally in California. I take from your comment that you are less concerned with raw numbers and more concerned with vanity labels and trends. If you are a well funded founder perhaps California remains the place to be, but the numbers indicate it’s no longer the epicenter of economic growth that it certainly was in prior decades.
- no_wizard 6y ago
  If there is anything I would say is going to hurt California Even more (frankly it already is), it’s available affordable housing and the ability to build it. I understand that Prop 13 (I believe it to be 13) was passed for reasons that felt very real at the time, but it’s created a system that devalues heavily the otherwise natural churn of home ownership. I don’t personally think it’s taxes, or any particular brand of politics (per se, as I know this is a political issue, I just mean relative to this), but that, in essence, that is destroying California slowly from the inside. Both Oregon and Washington are similar politically and Oregon is very close in taxes but they aren’t seeing any population outflows like this. I firmly believe it’s due to the issue of housing before any other factor. I’m trying to gather more data to back my assertion but all personal experiences of people I know and others I’ve met who have moved have cited this as one of the major or the single biggest reason for having moved
  - shoxty 6y ago
    I believe you are correct. You may find the work "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George of interest and what has come to be known as the Land Value Tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax Prop 13 is killing California, repealing it and replacing it with a Land Value Tax, in my opinion, would fix it.
- 0xcde4c3db 6y ago
  > I take from your comment that you are less concerned with raw numbers and more concerned with vanity labels and trends. In this context, I care about trends that happen over the course of decades and labels that become popular in recognition of those trends. I don't know why you're bringing up "vanity".
  - austincheney 6y ago
    I bring up vanity because when it comes to things like growth or value people are either talking about actual numbers or decoration.
- 6y ago
adventured 6y ago
> People have been saying that sort of thing since the '90s, if not earlier. And it's happening: people are fleeing the state. "California likely to lose congressional seat for first time in history after 2020 Census. Californians moving out lead to cut in Golden State’s political clout." "other states like Texas are expected to gain as many as three new seats" https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/03/california-lose-congressional-seat-reapportionment-2020-census/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/03/california-lose-congr...
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > And it's happening: people are fleeing the state. Poor people are leaving to other parts of the USA slower than rich people are moving in from other parts of the world; California has net in-migration despite net domestic out-migration. This is bad in terms of domestic political power, of course, but it's directly a consequence of economic success. It has lower net growth than many other parts of the country, but that is not just a matter of migration but also the lower natural growth rate that usually accompanies greater wealth. And it's not one of the places actually shrinking because people are actually fleeing, not being displaced by richer people—there are a number of states where that is true, but CA isn't one of them.
  - alexnewman 6y ago
    Check again. I left. many of my buddies at Google left. People are going back to where they came from
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Check again. I left. many of my buddies at Google left. I'm familiar with the statistics, the issue gets raised here every couple months or so. You and your friends from. Google aren’t the whole universe. Sure, some well-off people leave and some less well-off people move in, but that's not what is dominating the aggregate statistics.

shakezula 6y ago

Hard disagree. I live in Utah, grew up here, and there's an absolute population boom going on right now because of tech. It's one of the reasons our unemployment rate is so low. Tech has been good to the valley but it's not without its trade-offs. Houses in West Valley that only a few years ago would have sold for $120k-$150k are closing for to $300k+.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Hopefully the state can get ahead of this problem and prevent the same issues we’ve seen in Silicon Valley. Housing is largely a red tape/nimby issue and not a real estate issue.
- mrkstu 6y ago
  The main problem is most of the livable land is concentrated in the ‘wasatch front’ mountain range, and the valleys running north south along it. This keeps the available developable land within drivable distance permanently constrained.
- shakezula 6y ago
  We don't have much red tape but we definitely get a lot of nimbyism from the LDS church and its members. They have a stranglehold on our state that most people don't understand. I hope we're able to keep rents from ballooning, but I'm not optimistic.

Voloskaya 6y ago

> Reasonable people are going to other states. People with similar belief than you about "value" (really, only money) creation and regulations/taxes are going to other states. This has nothing to do with being reasonable. Someone perfectly reasonable could think better safety nets and less inequality is a worthy trade-off for less growth.

rayiner 6y ago
> Someone perfectly reasonable could think better safety nets and less inequality is a worthy trade-off for less growth Except California also has among the highest levels of income inequality and highest cost-of-living adjusted poverty rates in the entire country: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-california-poverty-rate-20180913-htmlstory.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversatio... It's not just about potentially different priorities about growth versus safety nets. It's also a question of whether you believe that you should double down on the policies that have made California and New York among the hardest places to live for the middle and lower middle class. In places like California and York, so much money meant to go to "better safety nets and less inequality" actually goes to providing secure middle class lifestyles for college educated white people. California, for example, is drowning in teacher pension debt despite having some of the highest state taxes in the country. But over 60% of California teachers are white, in a state where just 23% of schoolchildren are white. So when people look at white-hispanic test score gaps (California having among the largest gaps in the country), and vote for more education funding, the actual impact on reducing inequity is extremely attenuated. Likewise, on housing policy, people act very concerned about it in New York and California, but how much money and legislative effort goes to actually providing housing for people who need it, versus paying salaries for college-educated administrators and bureaucrats, versus propping up housing prices in middle/upper middle class racially segregated neighborhoods? I'll note that LA teachers are demanding that as a condition for schools reopening, charter schools be shut down: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-26/citing-coronavirus-risks-l-a-teachers-union-calls-for-new-limits-on-charter-schools https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-26/citing-c.... Charter schools are, of course, a policy that's supported by the majority of the black and hispanic people that actually have kids in the school districts. (White Democrats are the only group where a majority oppose charter schools and vouchers.) This is a really telling illustration of what the real priorities are. If, for the taxes Californians and New Yorkers pay, they actually got a robust safety net, good schools, and good transit, I imagine that a lot fewer people would leave.

didibus 6y ago

I'm in Seattle now, but when I moved, I considered California or Utah as places to work. The reason were purely driven by the geography of the land itself. Both California and Utah are beautiful places. And they have cities which are fun and interesting to live in. California turned me off, because it just seems like it has reached max capacity, there's just too many people living there. Utah lost to Seattle for other reasons. I guess my point is, I think all I cared about was the geography and temperature profile, and the lifestyle the place would bring me. The actual company I'd work for came after these. So in my opinion, Utah is doing well because of its geography, same for California. People just like it there.

_curious_ 6y ago
"...I guess my point is, I think all I cared about was the geography and temperature profile, and the lifestyle the place would bring me. The actual company I'd work for came after these." This approach/reasoning is too often overlooked. Smart and capable people get to pick and choose where they want to live.

aaomidi 6y ago

The major reason anyone is leaving California is housing prices. Anything else is just icing on the top of the cake. Housing isn't an issue that goes away with value creation. I'd bet Utah would suffer the same way if a storage container starts costing more than $2000 a month.

ethanbond 6y ago
In fact, one might suggest that housing is an issue that gets amplified by value creation...

raffraffraff 6y ago

Mormons in Utah had access to free education and cheap housing. These things are huge. I know a bunch of Mormons and Formons (former Mormons) who moved there because of a free Brigham Young University education and stayed to work at (and help found and build) local startups because housing was cheap. Edit: perhaps not "free" education but as-near-as, for any American. That free education was only available to Mormons.

xxandroxygen 6y ago
Yep, “as-near-as” free is right. A semester’s tuition at BYU is $3k for Mormons, and it doubles to $6k for non-members (though that’s still pretty cheap, relatively)
camhart 6y ago
BYU isn't free for anyone--not even members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.