Friday, November 15, 2019
Is California Unlivable?
There are articles out there claiming just that. People are leaving in great numbers. The fire situation seems to get worse every year. Water is always an issue. Taxes are high. It’s the land of earthquakes. Homelessness is a huge problem. State government is a mess. The problems go on and on.
So is it the end? Far from it. All of California’s problems can either be solved or lived with. One example, the number of homes lost to fire is directly related to the lack of affordable housing in more urban areas. Because of that people live further out in the hills where fire was always a problem.
The vast majority of the state’s issues can be solved with political change. I’m not even talking right or left wing politics. Drought does not care what your political party is. Things like better housing codes have greatly reduced the chance of severe earthquake damage. Many of the state’s issues can be addressed in a similar fashion.
Why would one bother? There’s a lot of vitality left in the state. I grew up in a dying New England mill town. It’ a real eye opener to see downtowns with thriving businesses and activities. There are millions of people who really want to live here.
On a personal level, my daughter and son-in-law are opening a second restaurant. Even with all the drawbacks, there’s plenty of opportunity to make a ton of money. While that’s still possible there will be people who want to live here -in spite of the drawbacks. California is a huge economy eclipsing the GDP of most nations.
Of course, all those sunny days are a real draw for a lot of people. As for myself, it’s too dry and I actually miss the rain. While I wouldn’t want to live here full time, it’s easy to see why people would.
-Sixbears
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1) There is drought, because Moonbeam, unlike his much brighter father, didn't want to follow the century-old State Water Plan, and refused, in two different trips to the governor's mansion, to build any new reservoirs or infrastructure to utilize what water runs out to sea every single year. But people have moved here anyways, doubling the state's pop. from 20M to nearly 40M in a generation.
ReplyDeleteDitto for energy generation and infrastructure. This is the penalty for electing Moonbeam four times.
2) People don't live in the hills because there's no housing in the cities, they live in the hills because they're beautiful and the cities are sh*tholes.
Also, because they're idiots, because the hills burn every year since forever. For forty years, fer cripesake, they built houses with wood shake roofs, which is like making a roof out of charcoal briquettes.
If people were required to build concrete homes with metal roofs there, and allowed no brush whatsoever within 50' of a structure, the annual fire loss would be single digits. But people rich enough to be stupid keep going back, and screwing it up. Serves 'em right.
3) The inner cities are unlivable, as Democrat admins make them so. Which drives their tax and business base away, which will, and is, bankrupting the state.
4) Then, inexorably, the stupidity ends, and we can try again.
But not until they turn the entire lashup west of I-5 into Detroit redux.
Let them.
It's all blue hives there anyhow, and when the mobs they've fostered revolt, and burn them out, great will be the celebration in the saner half of the state.
There's a lot going on in the state -more than can be touched on in a short blog post.
DeleteAs a former firefighter I'm appalled at they way houses have been built in the middle of what's essentially a huge Kindling pile.
Some of the smaller cities are nice -I'm not a fan of big cities in general.
California is huge and could easily be at least three different states.
There are ways to make the state more livable. I'm just curious if they'll take the necessary actions to make it happen.