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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsArticle: California Is Booming. Why Are So Many Californians Unhappy?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/business/economy/california-economy-housing-homeless.htmlSAN FRANCISCO Christine Johnson, a public-finance consultant with an engineering degree, was running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She crisscrossed her downtown district talking about her plans to stimulate housing construction, improve public transit and deal with the litter of needles and poop that have become a common sight on the citys sidewalks.
Today, a year after losing the race, Ms. Johnson, who had been in the Bay Area since 2004, lives in Denver with her husband and 4-year-old son. In a recent interview, she spoke for millions of Californians past and present when she described the cloud that high rent and child-care costs had cast over her familys savings and future.
I fully intended San Francisco to be my home and wanted to make the neighborhoods better, she said. But after the election we started tallying up what life could look like elsewhere, and we didnt see friends in other parts of the country experiencing challenges the same way.
California is at a crossroads. The state has a thriving $3 trillion economy with record low unemployment, a surplus of well-paying jobs, and several of the worlds most valuable corporations, including Apple, Google and Facebook. Its median household income has grown about 17 percent since 2011, compared with about 10 percent nationally, adjusted for inflation.
But California also has a pernicious housing and homeless problem and an increasingly destructive fire season that is merely a preview of climate changes potential effects. Corporations like Charles Schwab are moving their headquarters elsewhere, while Oracle announced that it would no longer stage its annual software conference in San Francisco, in part because of the citys dirty streets. Shining example or third-world state? a recent headline on a local news website asked.
You get depressed if you listen to everything going on, but you cant find a contractor and the state continues to create jobs, said Ed Del Beccaro, an executive vice president with TRI Commercial Real Estate Services, a brokerage and property management company in the Bay Area.
Whether its by taming bays and mountains with roads, bridges and power lines or grappling with a lack of water and crippling earthquakes, California is perennially testing the limits of growth. Its population has swelled to 40 million and the states economy has grown more than previous generations had thought possible, cramming more cars and more people into cities that were supposed to be tapped out, while seeding new companies and new industries as old ones died or moved elsewhere.
But today it has a new problem. For all its forward-thinking companies and liberal social and environmental policies, the state has mostly put higher-value jobs and industries in expensive coastal enclaves, while pushing lower-paid workers and lower-cost housing to inland areas like the Central Valley.
This has made California the most expensive state with a median home value of $550,000, about double that of the nation and created a growing supply of three-hour super commuters. And while it has some of the highest wages in the country, it also has the highest poverty rate based on its cost of living, an average of 18.1 percent from 2016 to 2018.
That helps explain why the state has lost more than a million residents to other states since 2006, and why the population growth rate for the year that ended July 1 was the lowest since 1900.
Whats happening in California right now is a warning shot to the rest of the country, said Jim Newton, a journalist, historian and lecturer on public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Its a warning about income inequality and suburban sprawl, and how those intersect with quality of life and climate change.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)the higher costs of housing near work and the cities. My granddaughter just returned from LA area after finding long commutes to work and housing costs were not affordable.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)GOP policies of the 1970's,especially the Prop 13 Real estate Tax issue. That was the single most devastating blow to future Housing costs in latter years.
ansible
(1,718 posts)Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)bag of Skunk p*ss. Several Couples from Cali have bought homes in our Village in the last three years. The folks who purchased their previous Homes had the shock of a life time when their new Real Estate Tax Bill hit.
All those Municipal Bonds with interest have to be paid back one way or another. It takes a fixed amount of Revenue to keep Cities functioning and their main source is Property Taxes.
Baked Potato
(7,733 posts)The loss in revenue tanked city governments.
SWBTATTReg
(22,130 posts)These problems are prevalent in other states too, and in MO (STLMO), where I'm at.
We see high rent and child-care costs too, and IMHO, the author didn't look hard enough when she claims that "and we didnt see friends in other parts of the country experiencing challenges the same way.
Perhaps CA is more tilted towards the high end of costs (where she's getting her opinion from), and where I am coming from, is the everyday, run of the mill, costs that we all experience across America (babysitting, home costs, rent, etc. news from my neighbors, etc.).
CA is an exception. NY is an exception. Alaska is an exception. FL is an exception. There are reasons why these localities are experiencing high costs (flood of incoming arrivals pushing markets ever higher, etc.).
We have been seeing (in STLMO) more and more folks moving in from CA, etc., when they discover that they can buy a home here, sell their place in CA or elsewhere, make a killing, and have a decent life here in STLMO (w/o some of the perks that living in CA, NY, FL, etc. have vs. MO).
Initech
(100,079 posts)They fail to take into account Seattle, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, and so on. They all are facing similar problems, the common link being our ever-increasing monthly cost of rent. Which is escalating out of control with no foreseeable break in future pricing.
maxsolomon
(33,345 posts)I've lost co-workers to MPLS from Seattle.
Even the shittiest fixer-upper in Seattle is in the 500s. I know couples that spend >50% of their income on their mortgages.
Initech
(100,079 posts)They definitely need some form of regulation, if there was a way to do so.
MichMan
(11,932 posts)Buy a house for 300k a dozen years ago that is now worth $700k? California should impose a 50% tax on the increased value. The tax money could subsidize lower income housing.
Initech
(100,079 posts)But I could definitely see the backlash happening as well if that were to be introduced in a campaign.
David__77
(23,418 posts)In Sacramento, for instance, an arena was built and many businesses opened in the central city. At the same time, housing prices increased a LOT and the area is awash with rental bikes and craft beer while long-standing residents find housing to be very unaffordable.
Also, while I get the benefit of green policy, there is a cost to things like requiring high efficiency standards be met on newly constructed buildings.
Even in places like Sacramento, far from the Bay Area or LA, housing prices are very high. I suspect they will continue until theres another major recession.
dustyscamp
(2,224 posts)They're always blaming liberals for ruining California and over exaggerating the awful things that happen in that state
Initech
(100,079 posts)Where they grossly over-exaggerated the homeless problem in San Francisco, and their big "burn" at the end was leaving pooper scoopers on the door to Nancy Pelosi's office.
Although I will say that if I lived in a neighborhood where MAGA flags were flying everywhere, I'd definitely seek moving to somewhere else!
stopdiggin
(11,314 posts)for about 10-15 years. then come back and brag to me about how little your house cost ....
Ohiogal
(32,002 posts)Like any good Republican will parrot to you.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)than people in the US are.
https://amp.axios.com/nervous-angry-rich-countries-90036353-9758-42f4-95a9-7340cebfdc10.html
The really weird thing seems to be that doing objectively better makes people more worried and more angry.
Caliman73
(11,738 posts)We have a very powerful economy in California. The richest state in the nation with an economy and population comparable to many nations.
Part of the problem with California is the distribution of wealth and income. As stated in the article, our housing market is out of reach for most of the population. The desirable places to live attract people but cannot sustain them hence the problem with homelessness.
We have Democratic control of our government, but there is still a struggle even within the party on how to raise the standard of living of all people while not chasing away the tech industry and other major money makers.
I disagree with the statement "The State has put high value jobs..." The state doesn't tell companies where to go, the companies go where to money is. If you want to compete in tech, you go to the City and outlying areas, or to LA or Irvine and San Diego. You can set up a tech company in San Bernardino or Redding, but good luck competing with Silicon Valley and the major cities. It might distribute the population better if the Stated DID tell companies where to go.
Housing is saturated in the big cities too so naturally the push is going to be eastward to the large tracts of desert land that people don't necessarily want to go live in. I remember in the late 90's/early 2000's when my parents were close to retirement, they bought there nice 3.5 bedroom 2.5 bath house with a decent yard for 107k in 1979 but my sister and I had moved out so they were looking at where to go. Everything in our home town and outlying areas was 400k for like a 2 bedroom and while they could have afforded it with the sale of their home it would have been an economic hit. They looked into San Bernardino and Riverside where they could get a 7 bedroom for 265k at that time because they were trying to attract LA commuters. Now, those homes are expensive and pushing into further eastward. You see places like Norco, Temecula, and the like that were sleepy little towns that are now rows and rows of tract housing.
The same way that you don't see a ton of people setting up shop in Idaho and Iowa or other places but going to Florida, New York, and California, is happening internally in the state.
former9thward
(32,016 posts)Drive through Palo Alto and see all the RVs parked. People who work at the Tech companies but can't afford any housing there. But everything is great....
tirebiter
(2,537 posts)There are more jobs than living quarters to house the employed much less the unemployed. RVs are about the only solution for a gold rush situation.
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