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At last count I've had 14 friends move out of California in the last 3 years. All of them middle class. The biggest reasons given are cost of living and quality
by itbeho 6y ago
At last count I've had 14 friends move out of California in the last 3 years. All of them middle class. The biggest reasons given are cost of living and quality of life and education for their kids.
- scop 6y agoWe will be moving out of CA in the coming months. We are lifelong residents. We are leaving due to cost of living and especially quality of life for our children.
- jerkstate 6y agoPlease consider the policies that made your location expensive and of poor quality for families when voting in your new home.
- scop 6y agoOh trust me, I didn't vote for said policies in SF and I won't be voting for them in TX!
- didibus 6y agoI know everyone likes to scape goat some policies for that, but as Occam razors would have it, I think it's just the population growth that was the main cause of price increase, and a population decrease would probably result in a price decrease.
- dionidium 6y ago> I think it's just the population growth that was the main cause of price increase Population growth without commensurate growth in housing. You can add people, but you gotta let them build houses. If you don't, then prices rise, for reasons that are very easy to understand if you're not financially (or otherwise) motivated to find them confusing.
- didibus 6y agoBuilding houses isn't free, and when there's a huge demand for land to build on, and all the land is already taken, prices to build the house jack up, and everything follows. Find me a single city anywhere with similar growth that didn't have housing and rental cost go up and maybe I'll reconsider. But right now, I stand by the most simple explanation as likely the cause.
- dionidium 6y agoThe most simple and obvious explanation by far is that demand has outpaced supply. The thing your analysis is missing is that this mismatch is entirely artificial. It is more or less illegal to build new housing. It is structurally and legally impossible to construct enough housing to meet supply. Zoning prevents most of it and excessive regulation takes care of the rest. The cost of housing is astronomical because it's illegal to build enough of it. I'll turn your phrasing around and say show me a city that makes it legal to build as much housing as people desire for 30 years that still has high prices and I'll consider your point of view. But until then, it seems to me that you're going to have to make it legal to build housing if you want more housing.
- jerkstate 6y agoCalling this a simple supply and demand problem is not the whole picture. How come you can't just build new housing to accommodate for the population growth? What's the tax burden in CA relative to other states? Where do those tax revenues go that don't benefit the taxpayers quality of life? What other factors negatively influence quality of life for families which are encouraged by policy?
- glitchc 6y agoThis doesn't make any sense. Why is the quality of life poorer in California compared to Texas when California has: Better schools across all grades, better universities and better weather? Perhaps there are other factors? Do demographics play a role perchance? From Wikipedia: 1) According to 2018 US Census Bureau estimates, California's population was 59.5% White (36.6% Non-Hispanic White), 14.7% Asian, 13.8% Some Other Race, 5.8% Black or African American, 0.8% Native American and Alaskan Native, 0.4% Pacific Islander and 5.1% from two or more races. 2) According to the 2018 US Census Bureau estimates, the population of Texas was 73.5% White (41.4% Non-Hispanic White and 32.1% Hispanic White), 12.3% Black or African American, 5.0% Asian, 0.5% Native American and Alaskan Native, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 6.0% Some Other Race, and 2.7% from two or more races. Texas is still predominantly white. I'm wondering if that is the unstated preference here.
- scop 6y agoI live in San Francisco. I literally do not see black people. I largely do not see brown people outside of the service industry (i.e. they are "kept back in the kitchen"). I will largely interact with only white people and asian people on any given day. Where I will be moving to in TX has more diversity than where I live in San Francisco, which is something I am happy about. My children will be seeing more black & brown people in TX than San Francisco. But hey, thanks for casually assuming racist motivations!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dmode 6y agoYou do not see brown people ? Have you, I don't know, been to any tech company ? where vast majorities of engineering groups are brown people ?
- wpasc 6y agoNot either of the posters, but in many demographic calculations, those of Indian descent are often referred to as "Asian" or "Indian" with "Brown" often referring to African-descendant or Hispanic.
- JKCalhoun 6y agoYes, you and poster you're replying to mention "quality of life". What does that mean? A cynic would see this as a dog-whistle for "too many Asians/Hispanics/foreigners". (And I have actually heard a white person here in California say that about the schools.) I suspect though you mean something else.
- scop 6y agoSee my reply on a parallel comment. I will be moving to a more diverse area. It's remarkable how "I don't like the Bay Area" translates so easily to "racist dogwhistle". Quality of life means things like: - "there are children in my neighborhood" - "I don't need to keep looking over my shoulder at the playground with my children" - "I can get a 15-yr mortgage on a house that is 2000 sqft, be financially stable, and safely deal with recurring large medical expenses that we will always have due to pre-existing conditions"
- stanford_labrat 6y agoI don't think many people are attempting to raise children in SF proper, where this anecdote takes place, but walking into a safeway parking lot and having to dodge used needles is not what I would call high quality of life. Although in all fairness, I am not aware of the drug situation in other parts of the country.
- realdlee 6y agoThere are plenty of families in SF proper. If you don't have kids, you understandably aren't spending much time in parks, playgrounds, and kid-friendly neighborhoods.
- ryandrake 6y agoHere are some other "quality of life" issues: - Massive seasonal forest fires that have become normalized - Risk (however small) of a catastrophic earthquake - Dangerous public transport - Piles of feces, needles, and general filth on (some) city sidewalks - Daily bumper-to-bumper traffic on freeways from 8AM-11AM and 1PM-6PM - Extreme regulatory burden and cost of normal things like starting a business, building a home or addition, and owning firearms
- ryandrake 6y agoI would love to move out of CA in the coming months. My spouse is begging me to. If my job were to finally announce permanent, optional WFH for employees, I list my house for sale that day. Same complaints: cost of living / taxes, quality of life, and kids' education. The only thing keeping me here is my current job and clear opportunities for future [tech] jobs. If WFH became the norm, I'm out of here in 50 milliseconds. There are probably a lot of people like me.
- yurishimo 6y agoThe key is to get out and keep your salary. If your job does go full WFH, you can most likely keep your salary and then move, but then if you want to find a new job in a couple years, finding that same SF salary will be much tougher. I live in Dallas and have friends in Austin. 6 figure jobs are available, but you won't find many (if any) of these 180-200+ type jobs outside SF and NYC. Granted, $120k-150 for a single earner is plenty to live a good life in Texas, even in the cities (as long as you don't have excessive personal debts). Something to think about that I'm sure you've probably considered.
- bluedevil2k 6y agoYou're not looking hard enough or don't have the experience necessary to get these jobs. There's plenty of these jobs in Austin.
- tolbish 6y agoI'm curious why you bought a house in California to begin with. The cost of living was similar in the last two decades.
- ryandrake 6y agoBefore COVID and the prospect of multiple companies considering optional WFH became a possibility, I figured I was pretty much stuck here for career reasons, so might as well build home equity for 20 years or so.
- 6y ago
- J0_k3r 6y agoyou better vote red so your new state doesn't end up california 2.0
- michael_rb 6y agoProposition 13, which arguably had a hand in creating the housing problem that exists there today (alongside neighborhood efforts to pause any new housing development, something Austin is facing as well) was championed mostly by Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, both of whom were conservative. Anecdotal, but everyone I know who left California recently did so due to the high cost of housing, not because of their tax liabilities or a plastic straw ban. Kinda hard to be upset about having to give 9% of your income to the state when you have to give 50% if your income to the landlord (for an 80 year old, 350 sq ft studio heated by radiator in my case when I lived there).
- zoomablemind 6y ago> We are leaving due to cost of living and especially quality of life for our children. Sorry for noseing-in, but could you elaborate on the part that affects the kids? What sort of factors are there, or what kind of expectations?
- jacquesm 6y agoI highly doubt any of those factored into Elon Musk's decision.
- politician 6y agoNo kidding. There's a Tesla Gigafactory in Austin and the SpaceX Starship construction site in Boca Chica; he's demonstrated that he likes to be at the bleeding edge of development on-site. This move isn't surprising.
- billylindeman 6y agoI'm planning on leaving as well. Decided to spend a small stint in Lake Tahoe before leaving the state for good, but I'm not staying here. It's too left / socialist for me, and I look forward to the day I no longer have give the California government another penny.
- bradlys 6y agoCalifornia is extremely neoliberal. I can’t imagine a place that is much more...