posts: 298939
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| post_id | thread_id | thread_title | post_number | author_username | post_date | post_date_iso | post_body |
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| 298939 | 17382 | California--Current State of Living? | 27 | Bummer Dude | Dec 2, 2023 | 2023-12-02T13:38:00-0500 | The way I see it, the biggest political issue is cost of living, which when you peel everything away comes down to housing cost (spills over to labor costs, cost of goods, root cause of homelessness regardless any other popular theories). And though there maybe is some political movement on this, the “political” discourse doesn’t really have any real answers: lower taxes is probably the most common assertion from the right (agree that our taxes are poorly structured and revenues rely way to much on incomes as opposed to property and wealth which also contributes to the issues - thanks prop 13!) and probably the only coherent response on the left is addressing symptoms like building housing for homeless. Neither addresses the core issues and the core fixes are wildly unpopular. Housing cost comes down to an intractable problem of competing interests, essentially we can’t at the same time have: 1) a desirable place to live and move with geographic limitations, 2) cities and towns retaining size/“character”, 3) safe buildings and clean environment, and 4) affordable housing, of course there is some balance in all of these. Currently as a state we are intentionally countering 2 and 3, through a slew of state laws to reduce local blockages due to density/character concerns, and cutting red tape specifically related to CEQA and environmental protections that are constantly abused by nimby groups and localities to block development. The historical overvaluing of 2 and 3 is what has led us to current situation of abandonment of 4, which is driving the unintentional solution to 1 - driving down desirability by too high cost of living, compounded by decline in quality of life through increased homelessness, relative poverty and its associated social problems. Perhaps those things will work in concert over the coming years to reach some sort of equilibrium ie decreased demand + fewer barriers to development = reduced cost. But I think the overall desirability of living in California, plus limited real estate (especially near the coast), plus natural population growth means short of some radical change ( forced density, social housing, major tax structure reform, not just tax reduction, apocalyptic climate change impacts) we’re likely to be living with this for a long time. Just my $.02 |