“The 7.5 mile route to work was taking 40 to 90 minutes EACH way.”
Oh, you would have to just shoot me already! Sounds worse than that freeway by Getty Museum-405?
Employment is an issue for us-we would probably have to just wait for retirement. We do have to commute here, and housing in our area is outrageous.
There’s a lot of reasons to get out that have nothing to do with politics.
Well not directly anyway. The basic problem is too many people wanting to live on a tiny strip of land near the coast. And the topography doesn't help the traffic flow. Too many choke points, and not enough alternate routes. Inland is hot, might as well live in Arizona, New Mexico or parts of Texas. (Texas is more humid of course, but not quite as hot.
Add to the "too many people" a green and socialist mindset that goes back quite a few years, and you get the brownouts, and to some extent the traffic problems. Although to be fair, the earlier "invention" of the freeway helped bring on the "too many people", and led to it's own obsolescence. We have the same problem in Texas, but except in some few places, Austin for example, the topography isn't so limiting. In fact Austin is bit like California. Liberal, green, everyone wants to live on the hill country side of town, rather than out on the flatter ground to the east. But Austin doesn't dominate the politics of Texas the way that thin line along the coast dominates California politics. (With some exceptions south of LA and around San Diego.)