I Love California Deeply: Here's Why I'm One of the Hundreds of Thousands Who Left to Move North

[LiberalArkie]

By April M. Short / AlterNet April 23, 2016

It’s mid-March in Portland, Oregon and a chill rain is pelting the roof. I’m bundled up in three layers, a scarf and sweatshirt—indoors. I know that for much of the country this time of year, this is just an everyday afternoon. But not so much in my native home on the central coast of California.

Oh, California. I sit on the couch beside the cat, who is all curled up in a perfect circle. I think how I am a textbook cliche as I daydream about the many ways I love that place, and that Beach Boys song (you know the one) drifts through my head.

But I’m not new to California dreaming. Even when I studied abroad for a semester in Barbados, a Caribbean island nation that would qualify as a paradise by pretty much anyone’s standards, I surprised myself with a droning ache in the pit of my stomach to be back on that vast strip of land that runs along the Pacific. I’d have visions of those tumbling, golden hills, which grow green this time of year and roll boundless for miles framed by the forested mountains and crashing sea. California is like my beautiful mother, who has given me everything: deep respect for the ocean, in which my dad taught me to surf when I was very young; and ceaseless love of the wild, non-human world, which only blossomed after I studied in university beneath the majestic Santa Cruz redwoods. California also gave me an appreciation of myriad cultures, from laid-back beach town hippies to the strong work ethic and familial bonds of Mexican immigrant families whose children's quinceaneras I attended growing up, to the pounding beats and bold palette of the city streets, which are everyone’s canvas at once.

But I’ve left California behind. I simply can’t afford it.

Snip

http://www.alternet.org/economy/i-love-california-deeply-heres-why-i-left-it-behind

[PasadenaTrudy]

1. I don't think I could leave...

I really don't know where I'd go. I love northern NM, love OR, but they are not CA. I'm a native, been here all of my 52 years. Not sure I could adjust to a new state and state of mind. My biggest peeve with SoCal is the heat, and it is only getting hotter every year. I don't do heat well at all! Hopefully, I'll die before I get too old. Another 20 years is enough I think.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. But Trudy, no offense, you can afford it. You rent apartments to others, I can't afford your rent.

You are in Pasadena. That's the point of the article. The author and I also love Oregon but CA is our native home. We can't afford it because of money thirsty landlords and such.

At least have the decency to be grateful for what you have. My best friends are in and around Pasadena. I never see them and probably never will in this life. Because of money.

Enjoy CA, it belongs to you.

[PasadenaTrudy]

13. I keep my rents below market

so maybe you could afford them. Jeez, what makes you think I'm not grateful? Do I have to say it in every post of mine? And how do you know how much money I actually make to live on yearly? I bet it's less than you think

[kcr]

33. This is a thread about people who are from CA and love it, but can't afford to live there anymore.

Might not have been a good thread to talk about how much you love it and can't imagine living anywhere else. Especially if you're a landlord. The responses might not be especially warm. I'm sure that wasn't your intention, but from their perspective it might have come across as lacking empathy.

[Arugula Latte]

2. We came here years ago for similar reasons. Saw the writing on the wall.

I had one of those easy California childhoods (people had pools, horses, played tennis) as a member of an upper middle class family in the '70s. Went to the Univ. of California when tuition was measured in hundreds of dollars. Moved to San Francisco as a young person. My share of the rent was $350 a month. We had a sweeping view of the city and bay and street parking was easy. It seems like a dream now.

The rain and gray skies in the Northwest take some getting used to, but I don't miss the dry semi-desert climate of the Bay Area, where everything turned brown and dusty from about June through December. I love the green and the creeks and the lakes and the moss and the ferns and the sheltering tree canopy up here.

[cigsandcoffee]

3. The Mamas and The Papas originated "California Dreaming". n/t

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. Thank you.

"California Dreamin'" was written in a hotel in New York by John and Michelle Phillips.

&list=RD3kcmwXUdDCE&index=1

[closeupready]

5. I think every American and most people elsewhere have been tempted

to think about life in California, at some point or other. And I think it probably does live up to its promise for many who head west.

I never felt an overwhelming desire to be there, not sure why. But it no longer seems to be a good place to live - too much cancer, too expensive, droughts, weird people with tons of inked skin and piercings in painful looking places, too much drug abuse, violence, on and on and on. For the rich, it certainly does continue to be an appealing place, but for the typical person??

[rockfordfile]

8. Some of that sounds like Texas

[LeftyMom]

6. Uh, most of California is less expensive than Portland.

I'm a lifelong Californian, and I find it shockingly expensive every time I visit.

Great food though. Shame so many of the best food cart pods have closed/are closing soon. :/

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Oh my God, I would put our food up against anywhere in the country.

Portland has GREAT food.

[mainer]

7. Interesting. I left California partly BECAUSE of the weather.

Boring sunshine, all year round. Which means more people. Which means more traffic. Which means you get stuck in your car on endless freeways. And it's hot.

I'm so glad I live in Maine.

But I do love the vibe in California, where you feel like anything goes.

[Mariana]

22. LOL, I felt the same way about Texas weather.

How monotonous it was. You can never call New England weather boring, that's for sure.

[Quantess]

9. Portland is becoming unaffordable, because everyone wants to live there!

She should probably just move back to CA if she's so concerned about housing prices.

[yewberry]

10. Same happened to Seattle.

Shortage of housing and it's all overpriced now. I miss the 90s.

[edhopper]

12. Try living in New york City

And anywhere I would want to move to is just as or more expensive.

I lived in California early on, hated LA but loved the Bay Area, but that is so out of reach now.

[dreamnightwind]

14. This article is pretty accurate

and it brings up an issue with the minimum wage. Why not make it a living wage, and index it to the local economy? It makes no sense to consider the same dollar amount as a living wage in the SF bay area as somewhere in other far cheaper parts of the country. It's either a living wage, or it isn't. Index it already!

[Prism]

15. Authors like this don't want to accommodate reality

It reminds me of that Twitter employee from a few months back. The one sentence in this article that screams out at me:

At the end of 2015, my partner and I were paying $1850 a month for a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland.

Here's a thought. Do not live in Oakland.

The Bay Area is outrageously expensive, agreed. Gentrification is rapidly growing out of control. But I'm absolutely baffled at some of the poor choices these authors invariably make. They would have everyone believe that $1850 for a shitty one bedroom apartment is the inescapable norm. And it is.

In the actual cities themselves.

I can think of at least a dozen places around East Bay that have one bedroom apartments for far cheaper. I help friends look for apartments all the time, and there are a lot of places - even in Berkeley - where you can find a decent place for a vaguely reasonable price.

The problem with pieces like this is that you end up having writers with low-wage professions still desiring to live in in-demand places. They want to live the Life. Well, I'm sorry. When you choose a low-paying profession you have to make accommodations to your lifestyle ($700/month as an intern. When you chose to be a writer, you had to know that was what your first few years would look like).

Who on earth, making so little money, thinks $1850 a month while being working poor was a great idea? What was the decision making that allowed that to happen?

I was in that situation when I first moved to Berkeley. I had a rough time finding work. When I finally found work, my boyfriend and I then hunted around until we found a cheap apartment about two miles north of Berkeley.

Now I'm middle class, and I still live in that apartment. I can afford it. Yes, I'm not in the cities. When friends want to go out, I have to BART my ass over or drive, and then leave early to BART back. It's an inconvenience. But I'm also not going hungry or living paycheck to paycheck. I also don't spend $9 on a beer (This author reveals their desire to live a high life, because I guarantee those prices are coming from trendy bars and not your neighborhood watering hole).

That's the trade-off.

I love California. It's a gorgeous place. I could perhaps do with a bit less sun, and I could certainly do without how outrageous costs of living can be. But it's super possible to live here still, as long as you budget and make responsible choices about where to live.

The writer strikes me as irresponsible, and wants to whine because they can't live exactly where they want to.

Well, that's not how life works, sweet summer child.

[still_one]

29. I love California also, and won't leave

[Throd]

16. I will be leaving in about 10 years.

It saddens me, but it will be the logical thing to do.

[KamaAina]

17. "Welcome to Oregon. Now go home."

We owe it to the other Western states to get our house in order. Otherwise, even a relatively small outmigration by our standards will translate into a huge influx for which our neighbors (particularly Arizona, which has less water than we do!) are ill-prepared.

edit: I've also heard "Can'taffordya".

[hunter]

18. A shocking number of my high school classmates have left California because...

... they've got nothing against Mexicans, but... and they are quite happy to say that openly on social media sites, some while claiming to be progressive, or liberal, or supporters of equal rights.

My Southern California high school was 99% white and fairly affluent.

I quit high school for college and haven't lived in such a segregated community since. When my parents retired they moved away too. So did all my siblings.

The city I live in now is predominantly Mexican-American. 40% of the elementary school kids here don't speak English at home.

One of my grandmothers was born in San Francisco just after the great earthquake. Her older sister was born before the earthquake and had vivid memories of growing up during the reconstruction of the city. My dad's got many family photos.

My dad's parents were white California racists, but not of the more virulent sort. They actually did have "colored," "Latin," Jewish, and even homosexual friends. My grandma's older sister worked in Hollywood making costumes and was married to a succession of Hollywood technical people, and my mom and dad met working in Hollywood, so yes, I'm the child of Hollywood liberals.

Nevertheless, my grandfather was upset when I married, in his words, "a Mexican girl" and he boycotted our wedding, but to his credit he eventually got past that.

The history of racism in the U.S. west is as ugly as it is everywhere else. Oregon was originally founded as a "whites only" state, and the activities of the KKK and equally wretched groups in California are increasingly well documented. My father-in-law remembers plenty of sundown towns in California.

[PufPuf23]

19. I am a native California and a 4th or 5th generation

Californian in my family tree.

I worked for 7 years in Portland, OR in the American Bank Building on Pioneer Square and spent another 4 years in Corvallis, all after age 34 in the 1980s and 1990s.

I like Oregon a lot.

Where I was raised and live now -"home"- is in interior Humboldt county in the Douglas-fir belt so much of the forest looks much like the forests near Corvallis.

I spent 9 of my grade school and high school years near San Francisco living with relatives or in boarding schools and then spent 6 years at Cal for a BS and MBA. in many ways especially cultural the SF Bay Area is the center of the world to me though with age this attitude has ebbed.

California has everything and is a beautiful state. I would never consider living far from the ocean, forest, nor mountains. The diversity and willing to experience the diversity of a majority of Californians is a favorable trait over less diverse areas of the USA. The divergence in wealth and income is decreasing the mixing of diversity. So is the general more selfish attitude that has infected our nation/

That said I have spent very little time in southern California and when there it has been like being in another nation, granted I have not been in southern California since the 1990s. I actually have not been to the SF Bay Area since 2003.

The desirable urban areas in northern California and Oregon have grown increasingly crowded and expensive

I used to travel much for work and play and have spent more time in New York, Canada, Europe, Oregon, and Alaska than southern California. This part of my life ended in 2003 because of health and finances.

I get your post. I would still be living in Corvallis had not family and health then monetary issues disrupted my life. I always maintained residence(s) in California when living and working in Oregon and planned to return when retired. Then again I have a life interrupted..

Thanks.

PS I really miss Powell's

[dembotoz]

20. hell then move to wisconsin,....under walker the economy will always suck so housing is affordable

you will hate it but....

you can be happy???

or you can live in wisconsin.....

[Quantess]

21. I DESPISE the essence of this author's message.

A pity piece from a Californian who reluctantly moved to Oregon boo-hooo I'm so fuckin' sad to live in Portland!

As if Portlanders want a reluctant, whiny fuckin' complainer like that moving in to Portland? If you don't like it, GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA, dumbass!!!!

FUCK the author.

Edit to add: I hope the birdbrained author, April M. Short, can be convinced to move back to California.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. 2/3 of the way through she's like "and oddly, people don't seem as miserable here"

I can't figure it out!

[Quantess]

31. Oh really! And just wait until her neighbors / co-workers find out

about this article she wrote.

[grasswire]

27. yeah

we have too many of them already!!

Can't afford California, so they move here and drive up our housing costs, and they invite all their friends to come to this cheaper place to live.....and then they whine.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. Yes, Californians! The weather up here is dismal, gloomy, awful! You really couldn't stand it.

It's bad news. Terrible. Oh, oh so terrible.

Best to stay down there, y'all.

Yes, you have my sympathies if you are "forced" to live in Portland Oregon. Waaaaah!

[Skittles]

25. I'll take Oregon over California any freaking day

yes INDEED

[grasswire]

26. so the writer came to Oregon to drive up the cost of housing here.

Grrrr.

[still_one]

28. no question about it, there is a major crisis here in California with regard to housing.

In Bay Area, and Southern California, a lot of folks have been priced out.

There are more affordable areas such as the San Joaquin Valley, and parts of Sacramento, but unless one got into housing at least 20 years ago, protected by rent control, or have two people working, it is quite difficult to make ends meet in Northern and Southern California

[meaculpa2011]

30. I was born in Brooklyn...

and the 800 square foot house that my great grandfather bought for $2,300 in 1919 just sold for $850,000.

That's why there are bridges and tunnels. We headed out of NYC 32 years ago. Very soon we'll be leaving Long Island.

Why? For a better life and a lower cost of living.

For heaven's sake... my grandparents left Sicily crammed into the cargo hold of a leaky steamship because living in a tenement in the Lower East Side was better than living under the aristocrats back home.