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Sundown for California
The American ^ | November 12, 2008 | Joel Kotkin

Posted on 11/28/2008 6:41:11 AM PST by reaganaut1

[California] appears headed, if not for imminent disaster, then toward an unanticipated, maddening, and largely unnecessary mediocrity.

Since 2000, California’s job growth rate— which in the late 1970s surged at many times the national average—has lagged behind the national average by almost 20 percent. Rapid population growth, once synonymous with the state, has slowed dramatically. Most troubling of all, domestic out-migration, about even in 2001, swelled to over 260,000 in 2007 and now surpasses international immigration. Texas has replaced California as the leading growth center for Hispanics.

Out-migration is a key factor, along with a weak economy, for the collapse of the housing market. Simply put, the population growth expected for many areas has not materialized, nor the new jobs that might attract newcomers. In the past year, four of the top six housing markets in terms of price decline have been in California, including Sacramento, San Diego, Riverside, and Los Angeles. The Central Valley towns of Stockton, Merced, and Modesto have all been awarded the dubious honors of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation during the past year.

Even with prices down, many of the most desirable places in California are also among the most unaffordable in the nation. Less than 15 percent of households earning the local median income can afford a home in L.A. or San Francisco. In Santa Barbara, San Diego, Oxnard, Santa Cruz, or San Jose, it’s less than a third. That’s about half the number who can buy in the big Texas or North Carolina markets. Moreover, state officials warned in October that they might have to seek as much as $7 billion in loans from the U.S. Treasury. This is a disappointing turn for a state that once saw itself as the harbinger of the future.

(Excerpt) Read more at american.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: ca; calbudget; caleconomy; california; illegals; unions
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To: johnthebaptistmoore
¡ Beau Coup!
The answer depends on who you ask and for what purposes.
21 posted on 11/28/2008 7:14:57 AM PST by ßuddaßudd (7 days - 7 ways Guero >>> with a floating, shifting, ever changing persona....)
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To: reaganaut1
"The article goes on to explain that California government has been captured by state government workers and environmentalists, imposing taxes and regulations that drive out blue-collar jobs and middle-class whites."

Well, if you can't vote them out, and can't run them out...then STARVE them out. Move away and deprive Ahhnold and his comrades all that tax money. The way I hear it, it wouldn't take too much to make the whole state government fold.

"Atlas Shrugged" should be required reading for democrats buracrats...that's assuming their reading comprehension goes past a candy wrapper.
22 posted on 11/28/2008 7:17:23 AM PST by FrankR (Where's Waldo ([W]here [A]re [L]egal [D]ocuments [O]bama? (i.e. birth certificate))
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To: OldArmy52
they tend to have traditional family values by and large and are pleasant folk to live around.

Yeah, if you don't mind the goats, drunken parties every Sunday and incessant oompah music.

It's like any other group. Some are fine, others not. The trouble is a lack of a unifying national culture. Multiculturalism has doomed us to fighting one another for dominance. This is the legacy of not teaching and instilling a national unifying culture. Now we are defined solely by race or cultural group.

23 posted on 11/28/2008 7:18:41 AM PST by ecomcon
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To: Oldexpat
Doubtful. They have reached a point of critical mass in CA so that they can support themselves on the underground economy, including crime. More and more productive citizens and businesses will leave the state as taxes are raised to support the immigrants, legal and illegal. The remaining cesspool called CA will just descend deeper and deeper into a third world like country. Today, one in four students drops out of school and one in three in LA.

1 in 4 California high school students drop out, state says Using a new system for tracking dropouts, California discloses a rate considerably higher than previously reported. About 1 in 3 students in Los Angeles Unified left school.

24 posted on 11/28/2008 7:18:49 AM PST by kabar
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To: FrankR

The next round of tax increases designed to keep CA competitive with Michigan should seal the fate of the once great CA.


25 posted on 11/28/2008 7:19:28 AM PST by Goreknowshowtocheat
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To: Liz; ckilmer

Liz, please repost your examples of blatant illegal mortgages in America.


26 posted on 11/28/2008 7:22:11 AM PST by Grampa Dave (This is the link to Leo Donofrio's new website: http://thenaturalborncitizen.blogspot.com)
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To: OldArmy52
they tend to have traditional family values by and large and are pleasant folk to live around.

Does traditional family values include 50% out of wedlock births?

Hispanic Family Values? Runaway illegitimacy is creating a new U.S. underclass.

27 posted on 11/28/2008 7:22:19 AM PST by kabar
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To: Kozak
Also bailed in 97. Never looked back and never regretted it.
28 posted on 11/28/2008 7:22:48 AM PST by mad_as_he$$ (Nemo me impune lacessit.)
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To: RC2
One of main reasons for lack of job growth in California is because of the lack of education.

Not in the part of Kalifornia I live in. The cost of meeting regulations and in-lieu taxes for development from DC to state, county, cities and special districts is a huge burden. It can take several year before you break ground on a project and the cost of construction has increased 20 to 25% during that period...

29 posted on 11/28/2008 7:23:34 AM PST by tubebender (Retirement...The art and science of Killing time before it Kills you...)
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To: ckilmer; tubebender; Liz

The map link doesn’t work.


30 posted on 11/28/2008 7:24:36 AM PST by Grampa Dave (This is the link to Leo Donofrio's new website: http://thenaturalborncitizen.blogspot.com)
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To: Grampa Dave; Liz
Calling the Old Media: Five Million Illegals Have Illegal Mortgages in U.S.A.!

MALKIN: Illegal immigrant factor
31 posted on 11/28/2008 7:27:08 AM PST by ckilmer (Phi)
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To: villagerjoel

“...Out-migration” currently exist in the English language as “emmigration?””.

You must be one of them William F. Buckley types showing off your education and your big words. Nowadays we have to dumb things down doncha know.


32 posted on 11/28/2008 7:27:26 AM PST by Monterrosa-24 (...even more American than a French bikini and a Russian AK-47.)
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To: reaganaut1

“Democrats would like to do on a national level what they have done in California.”

Exactly.


33 posted on 11/28/2008 7:28:07 AM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Kozak

“I bailed in 97 and never looked back.”

I bailed in 1979 when I was in my late 20s.


34 posted on 11/28/2008 7:28:55 AM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Grampa Dave
It didn't for me the first time but I did get it. If you get there you can enlarge the maps. Just let me tell you that Kalifornia has counties that are blood red with mortgage foreclosures...
35 posted on 11/28/2008 7:30:39 AM PST by tubebender (Retirement...The art and science of Killing time before it Kills you...)
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To: villagerjoel

You are right, except that emigration only has one “m”.


36 posted on 11/28/2008 7:30:40 AM PST by lady lawyer
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

“Minnesota is probably the next California. The number one employer in MN is government.”

I believe you are right. Minnesota has a very strong socialist bent to it. I think it very well may be the next California, in the sense that it’s out-of-control leftist policies will collapse the state and turn it into a third-world hellhole.


37 posted on 11/28/2008 7:31:14 AM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: prismsinc

“America is under siege by the left-wing extremists.”

And America has just elected one of the most extreme examples of that to the presidency of the U.S. The United States is committing suicide.


38 posted on 11/28/2008 7:34:08 AM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: reaganaut1
This is a disappointing turn for a state that once saw itself as the harbinger of the future.

It still is the harbinger of the future. California spends too much, taxes to much and regulates too much. When a state's civil servants are buying 4,500 sqft houses, there's trouble.

39 posted on 11/28/2008 7:39:55 AM PST by Poison Pill (Hauser's Law can't be repealed.)
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To: ecomcon

” The trouble is a lack of a unifying national culture. Multiculturalism has doomed us to fighting one another for dominance. This is the legacy of not teaching and instilling a national unifying culture. Now we are defined solely by race or cultural group.”

Your comment is spot on. (See my tag line.)


40 posted on 11/28/2008 7:40:07 AM PST by ought-six ( Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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