> I am leaving California next week, and I'm not sad to he leaving the morons who run the place behind.
I'm sad to leave it behind every time I visit, it's my home after all, but I realized several years ago that I'm more longing more for a period (90s California was magical albeit extremely precarious) more than the geographic location itself, which as you mentioned comes with the people who run the place.
> The state has gone downhill on every metric possible.
Mostly because it got more crowded. As a CA resident, if you don't like CA, please DO move out. It will help traffic, for one.
If ALL you care about is a big house and taxes, then CA is probably not for you. As soon as you walk outside your TX McMansion, you may realize why CA is so crowded.
> > Then Sacramento, San Diego, Colorado, Texas, etc. is where people would move.
> some of them are starting to see San Francisco type problems, and it didn't take very long for them to get there because there are so many Californians that it takes a small percentage of CA's population to go and massively disrupt a smaller city.
Yes, all those Californians moving to Sacramento and San Diego really wrecked their pre-existing way of life.
> Also don't vote for the policies which made you pick up your bags and leave the place you came from or your new place of residence will eventually start to look like the one you left.
Maybe people didn't leave because of the policies, but because of their position relative to them. I mean, people who aren't legacy homeowners and find California too expensive but otherwise like it might well prefer to become a homeowner and then have the place they are in become like California.
> 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.
I would love it if the people who move to this state and complain about it would just leave. Please go find someplace else instead of moving here for our prosperity and then attacking everything that built it when you arrive.
>I moved away from California 10+ years ago - now it seems like a lot more are doing the same thing, but bringing the same things with them that has made California less attractive.
And people who did that were the incremental change that enable the people who you think are changing it for the worse to feel like moving there and doing that is a good idea.
Sure that boutique deli that you and your neighbors keep in business (or local law you voted for, or whatever, doesn't matter what it is, just some small seemingly non-meaningful change) doesn't really matter individually but all these little things at the margin add up to a big difference.
It's like how the presence of ethnic neighborhoods furthers immigration from whatever that source country because potential migrants know they have a turnkey place to fit in (though I consider people migrating into a position to economic disadvantage to be fundamentally different than people migrating into a position of economic advantage).
I'm not picking on you. You're just one person. One person doesn't matter. It's the larger mechanism of migration that I'm trying to describe here. Basically don't blame the new migrants. People like doing what you did are why people like them moved in.
> I wonder if the people fleeing California will end up voting for the same bad policies that are the reason they had to leave in the first place. That is, do they connect the bad policies to the bad outcomes, or will they still favor the bad policies?
They are leaving because of high prices caused by factors that are just as present in cities in Texas.
They're bringing their money and jobs with them, so they'll bring some of those higher prices too.
It's supply and demand, not liberal or conservative policies.
Texas conservative suburb-dwellers don't want higher density housing either. They especially don't want lower income folks near them! Look at how litle public transit exists, because such things would let the poor people get closer to their little burb.
Why are so many people falling for this "hey, look, we have lower prices, therefore we have better policies" talking point? Been there, done that. Lower prices are because I wouldn't pay as much to live there, that's not higher desirability.
> Part of changing and improve things is to actually move there to dilute the bigotry
Yes, bigotry is a nasty stain. Otherwise this thought sounds so tone deaf.
The common perception outside California is that Californians royally fucked it up and are flooding out like water from a ruptured damn, except they are bringing their political baggage with them to damage their new home just like the thing they can’t escape from fast enough.
One would think that if you are moving away from California for reasons in part caused by political factors (progressive NIMBYism that opposes new housing development, tent city promotion), you would reconsider whether your politics are really that beneficial to the community you're moving to.
Alas, people don't really learn and Austin is already starting to have a flourishing tent city complete with typhoid fever and all. I'm beginning to understand the "Go back to California" sentiment.
> Well folks, the writing is on the wall. Ask Denver and Austin what happened when people from CA figured out that their place was a nice place.
I see CA license plates everywhere with an accompanying Uhaul. CityData and bloggers are REALLY screwing up this country.
A plea to any CA'ers about to move. SLOW YOUR DRIVING DOWN AND FIT IN - DONT BRING CA ATTITUDE WITH YOU. (it was hard to write that without expletives)
I wish nobody wanted to move to UT I could've stayed in the state, but that stupid California money with the stupid tech bros came in and now it's freaking packed.
> And it's killing the people who live out here, right now. I can't imagine what it will look like if people start moving out here.
To be blunt, this is what already happened to all of the "desirable" cities on the West Coast and, as those of us who've lived here since basically the beginning said: buck you, you can't stop it. Start preparing now for what a wave of migration looks like and take steps to make room for the new arrivals before they[0] show up and outbid everyone who's already there.
Yes, this is going to look like "density" or "growth" or "change." Genuinely sorry, but the world is not a static place and since freedom of movement inside the United States is still a thing, all pretending that it won't happen or trying to make policies to limit it will do is turn whatever other area into one of haves and have-nots.
0 - I wrote "they" because I'm not leaving. I must be one of the tiny minority of people who likes where I live and have no plans to depart. If everyone else wants to pack up from the West Coast city where I live and move to Omaha, good on 'em.
> Tons of smart folks I know are leaving CA for TX or east coast.
That is very true, but CA also has a large in migration of smart folks, leaving the number of smart folks here at a slowly increasing number. Small towns in red states for the most part don't see in migration from smart folks, the best people they have are the children of those residing there, and in my experience the ambitious ones chose to leave.
> omg, this is CA. Have you driven a freeway lately?
CA supports a relatively dense living situation compared to many areas in 'red states'. While CA might not have the best roads, they have the population and economy to support their maintenance. Many areas in red states have decided to stop paving their roads all together, and are crushing them back to gravel, because the cost of maintenance is unable to be supported by the population and density of people using them. We are definitely at "peak road" in red state America.
> CA to the letter.
Yeah, but I can also get a cushy corporate job in California. Most of the people I knew from [small town in a red state] that stayed either inherited a family business, got hooked on drugs, or settled into the life of mid/low paying government work.
As long as most of them don't come to my state. (Not a slam against Californians specifically, just a fear of a greater population increase).
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