It one of the few republican areas. Not sure why many aren’t seeing high home prices as a success of the area. Not every area needs to be a section 8 nightmare like you seen to want.
It’s a balance. ON the one hand, high prices indicate an affluent population lives there. On the other hand, high prices make it difficult for young families to buy a home in such places.
But on another hand, given that the largest single investment for most middle class families is the home they own, people who own homes in areas of high prices are wealthier than the rest of us, at least on paper.
I’ve heard a few stories, of people who have lived in California for years, and sold houses and made a lot of money on the deal. Some were retirees who cashed out, and bought nice homes in other parts of the country for a fraction of the proceeds of their California home sale.
The coastal towns in OC are truly paradise. I lived in Corona del Mar in the late 70s and it was barely short of perfection.
However, back then, you would always see the Border Patrol driving down I-5, escorting men back to the border. When’s the last time anyone saw that? And I say ‘men’ because back then few brought their families.
Also, I didn’t see any correlation of cost of living there to incomes. There was enormous income disparity between those who made the big bucks and the peons. Few peons lived on the coast, even then. I was told that by the mid-80s there was a large migration there from Iran and other ME locales. So maybe a little less paradise-y.