I used to live in Dublin, CA outside of SF, and there was a big housing boom there. I said that SF could turn off Dublin's housing boom with one vote. The entire Western US is in the same position with CA - every good place to live west of the Rockies is inundated with people leaving CA, many carrying CA housing wealth with them.
Sadly, a lot of them bring the same bullshit policies and ideas with them. One person, originally from LA, commenting locally here in Bend was complaining about how a duplex would "ruin the neighborhood".
California Expats in large numbers are often disastrous for local politics. Many were political outsiders in Cali, but they bring baggage like the strong police state bent that most in SoCal seem to prefer with them.
Especially in smaller communities, it is quite common to see a major ideological divide between those fleeing Cali and everyone else who lives there.
A lot but not all. I live in the north sf bay (born and raised) and am an engineer for a municipality that has seen a big influx in the past 10-years of wealthy bay area/socal types. I (and basically all of my co-workers who mostly grew up here when it was not much different from Oregon) feel the same way you do in Bend about them here in California. It is definitely a class of people who are all about getting up in everyone's business if it is something they do not agree with. I am not sure where they come from but I would definitely say it isn't so much California as a whole, as maybe those accustomed to urban centers moving to more rural areas.
>It is definitely a class of people who are all about getting up in everyone's business if it is something they do not agree with
I agree. I think this mindset is cancerous to society. Being all up in everyone's business is part of what creates things like asinine zoning, the war on drugs, etc.
It continues to boggle my mind that people say things about domestic migration that they'd never say about foreign migration.
Let's get this straight: migration happens many places, and for many reasons. The population of California is increasing, not decreasing. The population of the entire country is increasing. Urban areas are growing at the expense of rural areas (and, to a lesser extent, suburban areas).
There is no such thing as California "driving their own residents out". People moving from CA to other places may have been born here, or they may have only lived here for a few years. It's not a zero sum game. Populations are increasing. Migration is happening, everywhere.
I moved to California from the Northwest, where I was born and raised. Where folks who have lived there for 10 years whine about Californians "ruining the place", but have never thanked me for leaving. The majority of people I know moved to CA from out of state, but we don't blame Michigan or Ohio for our problems. We have a strong economy, and we're trying to accommodate people.
Demand drives up costs if supply doesn't keep up. They were blaming California when I lived in the Northwest in the 80s. They're blaming it now.
I was listening to an NPR show just last night, about alleviating housing concerns. One pertinent quote was that, when you buy a house, you are not entitled for the view out your window to never change ever, for the traffic to never change ever. This is the YIMBY movement -- to accommodate additional people. This is exactly the opposite of what people like yourself are doing. It's pretty ironic that, in an article about trying to solve housing problems by accommodating people, you're being petty and negative and playing the blame game. All of the same things that lead to these exact same problems.
Say what you want about California, but we're not blaming outsiders for our problems, unlike other populated regions in the west.
> There is no such thing as California "driving their own residents out".
This just isn't true? It's pretty easy to quantify in terms of net inflows or outflows. And it turns out, California is a net people exporter[0]:
> Last year, California had 142,932 more residents exit to live in other states than arrive, according to an analysis of a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau, released Wednesday, Nov. 15. This “domestic net outmigration” was the second-largest outflow in the nation behind New York and just ahead of Illinois and New Jersey. And it was up 11 percent (13,699 net departures) vs. 2015.
> California’s net outmigration has been ongoing for two-decades-plus.
"How? Primarily through foreign immigration — 332,197 new residents from other lands in 2016 — and more births than deaths."
My comment and complaint was with the characterization of "their own residents", which sounds an awful lot like "you people", and the attendant implications that it's the fault of "the other", and that Oregon/Washington/Colorado/wherever are victims rather than merely other states impacted by the same factors California is -- namely, a booming economy, inflows to more urban areas, rising property values, growing wage gaps, etc.
But the attitude we get from the "victims" is that they have a god-given right to have their regions remain the same as they've ever been, and must therefore find a scapegoat (California) for all of their problems.
> it's the fault of "the other", and that Oregon/Washington/Colorado/wherever are victims rather than merely other states impacted by the same factors California is -- namely, a booming economy, inflows to more urban areas, rising property values, growing wage gaps, etc.
Sure, I follow you. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that outflows from CA would be lower if CA housing were less expensive (because supply was less constrained) is a reasonable one, IMO. Do you disagree?
In that context, it is arguably correct to attribute (some) inflows from the state to CA's expensive housing policies, which are in many ways worse than other states.
Or Denver and others could build more housing. This increasingly isn't just a California problem, even New Orleans is facing supply constraints causing measures of relative affordability to go in the wrong direction [0]
As someone who considers myself a YIMBY, I welcome people from elsewhere, but I hope that they move to my town because of its merits, not simply because "WOW, CHEAP!".
Cheap is an excellent attribute to have, we should all be so lucky, especially when it comes to something as fundamental as housing. In growing cities, it's a sign that market economies are working and that supply is allowed to increase, the way it should.
Despite what some may think, expensive housing doesn't benefit anyone, not even those who own the housing. Not, unless you're willing to leave the area, then you can cash out and live like a king.
The dynamic I'm talking about is that, say, a house in Palo Alto costs 2.5 million dollars, whereas one in Bend might cost 500,000 - and be completely unaffordable to many people here. It'd be nice, in an ideal world, if the person moving from Palo Alto came because they like Bend for what it is, rather than 'oh gosh I can buy a house and live on the rest', if that makes sense?
I don't intend to speak for 'davidw, but communities imply a social contract and people picking where to live based primarily on rental prices seem quite a bit less likely to build a rapport with that community. I'm not blaming them for it--late capitalism, yo--but it is a thing and it's not unreasonable for an established, community-concerned member to be like "hey, there's more to us than where your apartment is."
That's increasingly the problem in CA. Current residents have spent so much on housing that their only chance for a decent retirement is of their home values keep going up. They've paid so much that they haven't contributed nearly enough to their retirement accounts.
You can hardly blame a NIMBY if nearly 100% of their net worth is tied up in their home value and falling home values will result in them having 0 retirement and no ability to sell their home and move because they are so far underwater.
That depends on the definition of the word "blame" that you're using. If it's a moral castigation? No, of course not; they are being ground down by the shitty circumstances that entrap most of us and of course it's hard to hold as a moral failing the maximization of what little they have (and while it is a lot to people below them, yeah, it's little in the grand scheme of things).
But if it is an identification of a problem? I think it is fair. The amount of misery that NIMBYs can spread through forced inaction significantly outweighs the amount received in the case of action, I think.
So... California should pursue YIMBY policies to incorporate population growth so that the other 49 can keep population grown to a minimum (ie., can say No to YIMBY policies)?
When people leave California, because there is not enough housing, and move to Texas, which sprawls into floodplains, they double or triple their greenhouse gas emissions. Even with all the greenhouse gases from super-commutes, I prefer to have people stay in California.
Texas has very high per capita carbon emissions, but Oregon and Washington, which is where a lot of the complaining comes from, are pretty comparable to California.
Now, city dwellers do evidently have lower carbon emissions per capita. As you can see from the chart, New York state and Washington DC have very low carbon emissions per capita, driven by large urban populations.
California does have a favorable climate that keeps energy use and emissions down. But so does much of the Northwest, and urbanization clearly has a lot to do with per capita emissions.
In short, if you're concerned about carbon emissions, you should probably support density everywhere, not just in California.
Those are interesting links. For me, San Francisco's decision to demolish the Fillmore comes to mind immediately when reading the bit on living vs mechanical cities. SF's ultimately (Imo) harmful decision to require garages and parking also seems to fall under the mechanical rather than living city idea (http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2008-06-01...)
Your links about where people move are interesting, but I don't think they support the notion that the big problem is people moving out of California per se. California "keeps" a very high percent of it's population - only Michigan and Texas are higher. This is a little tricky to measure - California (and Texas) are big states, with several large urban centers. When someone moves from SF to Los Angeles (or from Dallas to Houston), that's considered in "in-state" move, whereas when someone moves from New York to New Jersey, that's an out of state move. That could throw off the numbers. The links do show higher domestic out-migration from California in absolute numbers, but there's still a lot of in-migration as well (perhaps higher as a percentage of population? Not sure...). And Oregon and Washington are up high on the list of out as well as in-migration, even if they aren't at the absolute top (again, keep in mind, Texas is a big state - you'd expect a lot of movement between two large states like this).
One very important thing to keep in mind is from your link about "close access" and "contagion" cities. The idea (for anyone who doesn't want to follow, though I do encourage you to read the links) is that places like SF or LA are closed off because they're so expensive, but sprawl into inland California occurs.
Within this context, from an emissions point of view, Californians moving to Seattle or Portland could be more desirable than staying in CA if they're moving to sprawl inland. Then again, this may cause displacement into sprawl elsewhere.
I'm pretty sure we agree that it's undesirable for people to leave California (or sprawl into inland areas) because of NIMBY building codes. The part I can't get behind is that people should stay in California rather than moving elsewhere for carbon emissions purposes. The data you showed overwhelmingly supports the notion that certain types of density are desirable, but again, the notion that CA should pursue this kind of growth so that other cities don't have to (while the US accepts 1.2 million immigrants a year)? Nope, I completely reject that idea.
I support it here, but Seattle, Denver, Portland are going to need to grow, intelligently too. I'm not interested in doing this so others can keep people out.
