Posted on 03/28/2019 7:19:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
You can't go a week without another report of businesses and people leaving California because of the high cost of housing. Today it's the Wall Street Journal's turn, in a story headlined, "California Has the Jobs but Not Enough Homes." The problem -- a self-inflicted problem if there ever was one -- is that the hot economy is creating jobs, but developers can't build enough affordable living space. The WSJ reports that "companies are expanding outside the state or moving outright as an affordable-housing crisis casts a shadow on the booming economy."
More:
For employers, “we’re at a crisis stage,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, an association of executives. Companies are struggling to recruit or promote from within as people turn down offers to come to California, Mr. Lapsley said. And with the types of jobs being taken out of the state, he added, “we’re not growing the strong middle class that we used to.”
Karen Holian, 44 years old, joined the startup Lottery.com when it was founded here in 2015. Though a San Francisco native, Ms. Holian, a marketing manager, was excited when the company last year moved to Austin, Texas, because she could finally plan to buy a home.
“In San Francisco, that never seemed like a possibility,” she said. A mother of two, she is for now renting a four-bedroom house for $2,000 a month, a third of what a comparable place costs in her hometown.
California generally, but San Francisco and the wider Bay Area in particular, have waged a decades-long War on Affordable Housing. There have been several justifications for this, some couched in nice-sounding language, some left unsaid. I'll let you decide which is which:
• To protect the environment
• "City planning"
• To protect the haves from the have-nots
• Opportunities for graft and corruption
• Control, control, control
I might have missed one or two, including "squeeze the middle class out of existence." Because the end result, no matter which justification was used at any given moment, has been the virtual feudalization of California life. If you've made it, if you're in the top 15 or 25 percent of California earners, then you're set. You get to live on some of the world's most beautiful real estate, and enjoy a perfect Mediterranean climate -- but what you really enjoy is all the unofficial legal and economic protections from the riffraff. Your position at the top is secure, as the middle class flees rather than compete, and the proles are kept in a state of permanent dependency.
I'm not exaggerating the extent of dependency in the Once Golden State, whether it's government largess or some kind of housing or transportation benefits from their employer. California, with its impressively high incomes, is home to one in nine Americans yet also to one-third of America's welfare cases. And with companies like Facebook and Google forced to provide living space or transportation to their employees, California seems to be on the verge of bringing back the company town. Tent cities are already a permanent feature, and have been for some time.
There aren't any surprises in today's Wall Street Journal report, just a sad confirmation of what has long been known. I saw the writing on the wall 25 years ago, and left California for Colorado, despite six years of great times with amazing friends. Over the years enough Californians followed me here, permanently altering my new home's once libertarian-leaning politics.
The question is, what are you going to do when they start fleeing to your state?
Folks who live in tents are not homeless. Folks living in tent are squatters
It’s no wonder contractors don’t return calls. We need more Mexicans. They can handle it.
The rich too stupid to understand that a civil society is built on the middle class.
My GF is very sought after in her field, she laughs at offers from the valley every few months.
And they just keep adding a few hundred thousand illegals every year.
Two summers ago we were in Studio City for my daughter’s wedding. Here and her husband are both accountants. We drove by a row of small homes on postage stamp lots with chain link fences, and on a fairly busy (i.e. noisy) road, and my wife checked housing on the internet. First, almost none of them were for sale, but she couldn’t find a single one for sale until she entered a minimum price of $650,000.
Meanwhile, the newlyweds moved to Phoenix a few months later and picked up a beautiful two story home (still on a fairly small lot) complete with an excellently landscaped yard and a full in-ground pool.
Their income is the same as it was in Studio City, but the MUCH BETTER house was $247,000, including much lower property tax.
For the middle class, most of California is already dead to them.
I left in 1980 and have never looked back....
Indeed. Colorado has been Californicated.
Hopefully the recall efforts recently stirred up by our clueless progressives may save the place.
Now, if we could only destroy Denver and Boulder, the state would return to its beauty.
Nothing that a massive dose of rent control won’t solve. /s
We’re leaving next year, after I retire. I made a good living the last 20 years but our quality of life will greatly improve outside of the California borders. We lost our retirement home in the Camp Fire. I just can’t see living here as an option. Some lucky state will get another couple of MAGA supporters.
Yep. The smart business owners would relocate operations to business-friendly states in the midwest and south. They would earn more profit, have a higher quality workforce, and sustain a middle class that will spawn future entrepreneurs.
I support building a Wall along the east edge of California. They voted for what they now have - massive illegal immigration, limited freedom and societal breakdown. Let them keep it and live in it.
They have already infected Oregon and Washington. Stop the Spread! Build the Wall!
I get bom-freaking-barded by headhunters trying to get me to take jobs in California. I just laugh and tell them they couldn’t possibly afford the salary I would have to demand to live there.
Instead, they choose to devolve into Venezuela or Cuba.
Those who don’t READ history books...
But isn’t Arizona turning blue? I ask that honestly not sarcastically.
Uh, most of us are dependent on salary and benefits from our employers.
Are some employee benefits more pure than others?
I’m currently renovating my Centennial, Colorado childhood home - adding vaulted ceilings and a huge addition to an amazing kitchen. Based on location alone, the ARV should be $799k to $830k - to feed the hungry incoming California crowd. I leveraged this deal with a hard money lender to buy a mountain home - away from the invading chaos that is transforming Denver. It’s outrageous what crap they’re buying here for $300k!
I’m sorry for your loss.
We are packing up and getting our house ready to sell. Hubby has a potential job in North Carolina. We are waiting to see if the start up gets funding.
If it doesn’t get funding, we will put off moving a little while until we find a place we want to retire in.
Too bad too. My husband loves the Sierras.
We are looking at Northwest Arkansas. I want to be in driving distance of family in Dallas and hubby wants hills and outdoor activities.
What are those tents fastened to on that cement foundation?
Are they just sitting there and not connected to the ground?
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