Why do people dislike California?
Why do people dislike California?
I recently moved to California. Before i moved, people asked me "why are you moving there, its so bad?". Now that I'm here, i understand it less. The state is beautiful. There is so much to do.
I know the cost of living is high, and people think the gun control laws are ridiculous (I actually think they are reasonable, for the most part). There is a guy I work with here that says "the policies are dumb" but can't give me a solid answer on what is so bad about it.
So, what is it that California does (policy-wise) that people hate so much?
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As someone who lived there, Conservatives hate it for very specific reasons, and other people dislike it for other ones.
The political biases were really well expressed above, and I won't rehash them. But, suffice it to say, it's seen as a standards-bearer for a way of living and a perspective on life that they fundamentally hate, so they have to tear it down.
For more practical reasons to dislike it, the cost of living is insane - I was priced out of a livable home in two cities and I made six-figure money. By 'livable', I mean 'less than a 1-hour commute to work by car each way' and 'pay for my home, a car, and be putting money away each month'. Renting a tiny place beneath my means and socking away money felt good, but was never able to catch up and purchase something that didn't make me house-poor or kill my soul in traffic. Other people made that sacrifice, I couldn't. So, I left.
Those real estate prices had many factors contributing - Prop 13 taxes, NIMBY types that kept new home construction well beneath the population growth, typical crap American zoning that prevents mixed-use mid-sized buildings that makes parts of Europe so livable and walkable, corrupt as hell politics that made the few new developments built into car-centric hells, massive influx of Chinese and Russian money investing in real estate pricing normal people out of single-family homes, AirBNB properties undermining and taking away rental properties, etcetera. It's a wide variety of factors.
The knock-on effects of this are huge - people living house-poor, or having horrible commutes that make them miserable, and at worst, an increasing number of people being bankrupted into homelessness. Combine that with the excellent coastal climate making homelessness survivable, libertarian communities that siphon away public funds while using slimy legal tactics to stop contributing their own, and every conservative government of bordering states buying their own homeless one-way tickets to California, and that's snowballed out of control. San Francisco, LA, and San Diego are the hardest hit.
It's kind of a microcosm of the entire country, so it's not like it has unique problems. But it has a bunch of them coming to fruition right now.
I could have written most of this, but about Massachusetts.
Prop 13 (1978) is part of the cruel legacy of Ronald Reagan, who had stopped being Governor in order to gird his loins for becoming President, but was still highly influential. The Howard Jarvis Association continues to poison the political sphere to this day.
Sounds mostly to me like the free market working as intended. You have a single state expressing the majority of American's values, so everyone wants to live there. California's portion of the GDP reflects what the concentration of blue voters does for the economy.
Except in a true free market zoning laws wouldn't keep adorable, high density housing from being constructed to artificially boost housing prices.
Other than that I agree with you.
The high costs really are kind of insane. Even before COVID. I honestly don't know what the solution is or if it's actually preferable to have high costs but also a tremendous amount of money coming into the state from continued interest in Californian real estate.
I remember when a city wanted 1 million dollars to construct an outhouse. At that price, with that level of graft, the voters thankfully voted against it.
If we can't even get an outhouse built, what does that spell for larger projects?
We pay so much just for the real estate / rent and so much in taxes and what does it get us?
My uncle got fined for installing his own solar panels (although this happened over a decade ago). Honestly the state gets a lot of things right but when it gets things wrong it gets them infuriatingly wrong, and for the amount of money we are spending this shit shouldn't be happening. I have no problem paying for an administrative state, as long as it administrates!
Recently we found out that over 300 physical assaults against Asian seniors were all done by one guy, which honestly I don't even know if that's true or not, and the implications in either case are terrible. One guy who was arrested for stabbing a senior citizen in the neck was released into his own recognizance and he ended up successfully murdering another senior citizen within 24h of his release. Of course, black perp Asian victim, so no surprise the justice system suddenly finds clemency. We will shoot black toddlers for playing with a toy gun but if it's a black person stabbing Asian senior citizens in the neck, suddenly this is a precious creature who must be protected.
Another recent headline grabber is when they eliminated the sats as a criteria for college admissions. That one really pissed me off, as someone who absolutely hated homework and was too timid to ask someone else to do it but who aced all the tests. They got rid of the sats but they will introduce a new test in 2025?!! They should have the new test ready before they eliminate the old test! Leaving admissions fully in the hands of incompetent teachers is so fucking stupid that it could only be intentional.
These past few years have really clarified for me that I think I identify best with social Democrats and not with actual leftists and certainly not with right leaning saboteurs. I don't mind giving the underprivileged a voice or giving them accommodations, but certain govt services are necessary and we need them to work.