why is there so much antipathy to california in the us?

[Brubear]

I'm sorry, no living in LA is far FAR worse then most other metropoliten areas, and I say that as someone who used to live in NYC - which is very close to as expensive as LA can get. what's the difference? infrastructure. as a regular, non rich person - getting around in NYC is fairly easy. and when I say regular non rich person - I mean someone who uses a subway. subway will take you quite literally ANYWHERE in a city and its boroughs. and while busses are a crapshoot, thanks to overpopulated, congested streets (NYC traffic is just... /shudder. had to drive through from NJ to Brooklyn and I'm barely exaggerating that just getting through Manhattan traffic took as much time as driving through most of NJ, but I digress) - they are there, and there is always an option of walking down the sidewalk.

there are food deserts in NYC. I've worked in one ages ago (that was fun.. no not really). but there are few and far in between relatively speaking, in general getting groceries in NYC is not super difficult and there are both expensive options like Zabars or Whole Paycheck, and cheaper ones like Shop Rights etc - even in Manhattan.

LA though... public transportation is severely lacking. getting groceries can be much rougher. quality of air is absolute shit. and rents are insane unless you are living in a crappy part of a suburb. you'd think that one of the biggest pluses to living in a large city would be convenience, because its so tightly packed, you don't have to go far for essentials right? nope. you are almost stuck with having to use uber to get around. and because of constant droughts, you have to be extra careful with water. and because of constant draughts - air quality makes NYC feel pastoral.

and above? is from a sibling who used to live there because their field of work is something that in theory should benefit greatly from living in LA, make the rest of it worth it? nope. not even close to being worth it. moreover - the culture, the clout chasing, the falsehoods and signaling virtue while stabbing people in a back? might not be ONLY in LA but its especially prevalent in LA. at least from experience.

I know that to some degree what someone considers hellhole is relative to their personal preferences. with LA - its hellhole even if you love cities, unless you are rich enough to balance out its issues.

in any case, the thing about big cities is that, correct me if I'm wrong, but people in rural areas might scoff at "dam city folk" but they don't tend to tell them how to live, let alone try to force the change regardless of whether environment calls for it. THAT is endemic to city people, again from experience. and no I'm not talking about things like "respecting people and accepting people" (not that I see some city folk not practice what they preach when it comes to acceptance, but I digress) I'm talking about basic, every day life things, from how roads should be, to the kind of car you should drive (or not drive) to whether you should be able to protect yourself from a wildlife or a burglar (they don't usually happen here, but you never know) in a place where you do NOT have police stations around every corner (in NYC, I could walk to a station within minutes and I had neighbours all around so yelling for help could actualy do something. where I live now - driving to one is 15 minutes or more, walking is a hike - and there are fewer cops in general, so if I have to call one - they will take a long while getting here and if my immediate neighbours are not home? no one will hear me scream).

road maintenance (including snow removal)? is on me (well on us, houses on our private road tend to take turns with it, but its not covered by the taxes and not repaired by out municipality is what I'm saying). so is sewage and water. I've seen people from cities talk about how ungrateful we are about all that taxes do for us, while siting municipal sewage and water, that our municipal taxes should be higher and like... i don't have those. i don't have city picking up my trash either, I pay for my own trash pickup to a private company. do NOT tell me that my taxes somehow should still cover services that city is not providing me or other people in my area.

this is the kind of shit I'm talking about when saying that city people have no bloody clue, but still feel qualified to tell me what i should be doing and how i should be doing it and how much I'm supposed to pay for it.

I've known people who liked living in the LA area, including multiple relatives who still live there. The culture issues you're talking aren't just endemic to LA. Hell, places like Portland is drowning in that very same culture, but instead of it being about being a rich celebrity or rich exec it's about being some hip artists or musician living the counter-culture lifestyle. It might be dressed up in flannel and a beard but it's the exact same culture. Also, I have a brother whose job is urban planning and helps cities literally across the country and the world (from the US to the Netherlands to China and Australia) address issues with infrastructure, walkability, food deserts, etc. LA isn't the worst example of the poor infrastructure in the US, just the most prominent. Smaller towns (not rural small, but still small) tend to be worse because they grow outward instead of upward but tend to lack the transportation infrastructure. For example, if you want to catch a bus from the north side of town to anywhere south of you where I live, if the bus isn't going towards the college, or if it's during the summer, then even the main route that goes through the town only comes every 1-2 hours. There are just so many cities that suffer from every single thing you mentioned, especially throughout the mid-west and other inland states, they're just not as well known because most people couldn't even tell you where they are.

And smaller cities try to force policy on larger cities all the time, they just aren't as successful in most states because of the population differences. That doesn't mean they aren't constantly lobbying their representative, starting petitions, or showing up to city planning sessions to do so. Plus they you don't tend to see it at the state level for the aforementioned reasons, but you see it all the time at the county level. Again, living in a smaller city in the heart of NorCal I can definitively say that our city is constantly hampered by the smaller communities around us (whether it's all of the various farmers or the smaller, less populous towns) simply because the county is a primarily rural, conservative farming county. For example, despite Prop 64 passing my county still blocked commercial cannabis as well as continuing to restrict cultivation. Despite numerous attempts to get dispensaries in our city, we can't because of all the small-town conservatives who still fall for Reefer Madness bullshit. If they had their way they'd repeal Prop 64. I'm constantly seeing efforts in our county to gather signatures to repeal various propositions that were voter approved, and every weekend you can go to the Target parking lot where a bunch of old conservatives have a bunch of signs to get you to recall our Governor. Just because they aren't as successful as often at the state level doesn't mean they aren't constantly trying to force others to live their lives how they see fit. Though even then you get states like Utah where it's gerrymandered so bad that they've effectively neutered all power from the urban center and state politics is dominated by the conservatives outside of Salt Lake City.

[Witchblade77]

I've known people who liked living in the LA area, including multiple relatives who still live there. The culture issues you're talking aren't just endemic to LA. Hell, places like Portland is drowning in that very same culture, but instead of it being about being a rich celebrity or rich exec it's about being some hip artists or musician living the counter-culture lifestyle. It might be dressed up in flannel and a beard but it's the exact same culture. Also, I have a brother whose job is urban planning and helps cities literally across the country and the world (from the US to the Netherlands to China and Australia) address issues with infrastructure, walkability, food deserts, etc. LA isn't the worst example of the poor infrastructure in the US, just the most prominent. Smaller towns (not rural small, but still small) tend to be worse because they grow outward instead of upward but tend to lack the transportation infrastructure. For example, if you want to catch a bus from the north side of town to anywhere south of you where I live, if the bus isn't going towards the college, or if it's during the summer, then even the main route that goes through the town only comes every 1-2 hours. There are just so many cities that suffer from every single thing you mentioned, especially throughout the mid-west and other inland states, they're just not as well known because most people couldn't even tell you where they are.

And smaller cities try to force policy on larger cities all the time, they just aren't as successful in most states because of the population differences. That doesn't mean they aren't constantly lobbying their representative, starting petitions, or showing up to city planning sessions to do so. Plus they you don't tend to see it at the state level for the aforementioned reasons, but you see it all the time at the county level. Again, living in a smaller city in the heart of NorCal I can definitively say that our city is constantly hampered by the smaller communities around us (whether it's all of the various farmers or the smaller, less populous towns) simply because the county is a primarily rural, conservative farming county. For example, despite Prop 64 passing my county still blocked commercial cannabis as well as continuing to restrict cultivation. Despite numerous attempts to get dispensaries in our city, we can't because of all the small-town conservatives who still fall for Reefer Madness bullshit. If they had their way they'd repeal Prop 64. I'm constantly seeing efforts in our county to gather signatures to repeal various propositions that were voter approved, and every weekend you can go to the Target parking lot where a bunch of old conservatives have a bunch of signs to get you to recall our Governor. Just because they aren't as successful as often at the state level doesn't mean they aren't constantly trying to force others to live their lives how they see fit. Though even then you get states like Utah where it's gerrymandered so bad that they've effectively neutered all power from the urban center and state politics is dominated by the conservatives outside of Salt Lake City.

this reply is going to be very much stream of consciousness, as I'm typing it up before heading off to get some sleep, but I wanted to get it off my chest, or it will bug me. so please forgive me the messy structure.

infrastructure in spread out areas is harder to get going for the simple reason of being too few people around to have something as frequent as what city justifies having. it is in a nutshell - too expensive. getting high speed internet for example to a 10 story building that has a bunch of other tall buildings near them - is cost effective as it spreads the installation cost across multiple families. running a frequent bus through an area where you may get maybe 2 people per trip on that bus - is NOT cost effective.

I live in a rural area now (by choice), I'm intimately familiar with bus every 2 hours issue. but... its compensated by actualy being able to own AND park a personal car without jumping through bizzare amount of hoops, or paying exorbitant garage prices and still not having any other readily available parking spots due to sheer amount of people vs lack of street space. the flexibility you gain compensates for having to be personaly responsible for your transportation needs at all times.

I can excuse lack of city like infrastructure to the areas that are more spread out. it is a cost we pay for having more space to ourselves. i can NOT excuse it to a large city like LA. and yeah, sure Portland has similar attitudes. I've also encountered that sort of elitism and hypocritical performative wokeness in NYC(you know people who are all talking the talk about how progressive they are, but when push comes to shove they are as bad if not worse then redneck conservatives we all so love to complain about and to be fair, I HAVE ran into at the grocery store, and that was heck of an experience O_O that I hope to not repeat, but I digress) . it just seems to be more prevalent in LA. or maybe its not more prevalent, just more visible due to social media. that visibility though is very much part of the cause for dislike.

as for the hampering - I do take some of your points and maybe dislike stems from disparity of success of the push, at least in some locations. but maybe its also the reason it doesn't bother me as much. i see anti abortionists campaigning by local medical clinics all the time. but they haven't managed to actualy DO anything just because there is so few of them, and most people around are too busy minding their own damn business even if they are not pro choice themselves either (for the record I am very, vehemently pro-choice. I also have to seriously restrain myself from arguing with the couple of Trump supporters that sometimes like to hang out by the post office, distributing their nonsense along with Trump merch).

what I HAVE noticed. is that there is a brand of liberal, some even in this very thread. that sound exactly like those conservatives that they so love to speak up against. you know - the ones who are calling anyone who doesn't believe and perform as they do, regressive, racist, sexist and all the other ists. the ones who are absolutely convinced that the ONLY reason anyone would vote for Trump is because they are racist assholes (forgetting how many people on all sides are single issue voters and that single issue is often not what you expect - most people I know who voted for Trump (primarily Black and Hispanic people, btw), did so because a bunch of legislations he passed to help his big business cronies - just happened to also help a whole lot of small businesses. I'm 100% sure it was purely incidental, but for someone running a small business for whom that business is how they support their family? it matters more then anything else. and there is your single issue. is it fair? no. is it smart or thinking ahead? no. but putting these people down as dumb or terrible or both? is NOT convincing them that they might maybe want to reconsider. it only makes them dislike you and not want to listen to anything you have to say.. and... that is how we end up with hatred of LA and places like LA.

we love to talk so much about othering and how shitty it is and it is most certainly shitty.... only to turn around and other people and then act all surprised Pikachu face when they react accordingly.

[Zan15]

Mainly because it’s expensive as fuck to live there and they are one of the strictest and most regulated places to live in the US as well. They also have some of the highest tax rates in the country. There’s a reason why companies and businesses are leaving the state en masse right now.

just about everything you said was false and just what you heard from random places on the internet.

They are not in the top 10 taxes rates relative to income/cost of living/
Companies are not leaving en masse, just some high profile ones...it happens every year.
Its expensive, but adjust for income and it does not crack the top 10.

Regulations, you would have to prove that. Good luck. there are more regulations in the state of florida just on the tourism industry then most states have regulations

[Zython]

Rich people tend to get angry when faced with the consequences of their own actions. There's your answer.

[Rasulis]

just about everything you said was false and just what you heard from random places on the internet.

They are not in the top 10 taxes rates relative to income/cost of living/
Companies are not leaving en masse, just some high profile ones...it happens every year.
Its expensive, but adjust for income and it does not crack the top 10.

Regulations, you would have to prove that. Good luck. there are more regulations in the state of florida just on the tourism industry then most states have regulations

I mentioned before the I worked for Oracle from '81 through '87. Most of my friends that stayed are pretty high ups in the organization now. Yesterday I had a FaceTime holiday "visit" with a good friend who is now a senior executive at Oracle. He was in charge of the Southeast Asian division back in the 90s. I kidded him about when he'd be moving to Texas. He laughed and replied that not one of the execs at Oracle have any plans to move to Texas. The same, goes for Larry Ellison himself which is moving to his private island in Hawaii.

About all Oracle's HQ change really is is just an address change and a tax dodge.

[Stelio Kontos]

The main thing that sent me back to WA from CA was the state income tax. I took a pay cut to move to San Diego, that plus the income tax just made it not worth it. It's hard to justify moving from no income tax WA to any other state except the other states that have no income tax.

[Shadowferal]

The States Americans Are Fleeing (and Where They're Going)

1. New Jersey
The grass is always greener outside the Garden State, as New Jersey retains its No. 1 spot from last year’s list.
Jersey has been one of the top 10 move-out states for United Van Lines for more than a decade. Jobs and retirement are equally likely to send people packing.
Taxes could be a major culprit — New Jersey has some of the highest in the country — though Reddit’s bjorn2bwild says just about everything is incredibly expensive.

2. Illinois
A survey from NPR Illinois and University of Illinois Springfield saw 77% of respondents rate the economy as fair or poor. In the same survey, 3 out of 5 people said they’ve considered moving elsewhere, and taxes was the most common reason why.
Quora commenter Michael Kong suggested education is one reason taxes are so high.

3. New York
Living in New York City is an infamous challenge, as the median home costs over $1.6 million and rent will run you around $5,000 per month.
And it’s not just the Big Apple that will take a huge bite out of your paycheck. On a cost-of-living index created by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC), New York ranks fifth in the nation.
Taxes in particular are crippling. Between income, property and sales tax, you’ll lose more in New York than anywhere else.

4. Connecticut
MERIC data shows everything is more expensive here, especially housing and utilities.
And despite its seaside appeal, Connecticut doesn’t seem like it’s retaining its retirees. Almost 35% of the people who left wanted to retire somewhere else, competing with jobs for the No. 1 reason to move.
Another compelling reason: taxes. As in many states in the Northeast, residents can expect to lose a hefty chunk of their wealth to high income and sales tax.

5. Kansas
More than half shipped out for work, while retirement and family were each factors for a quarter of those who left. Though it’s cheap to live in Kansas and it’s not especially hard to find work, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows people earn about $6,000 less per year than the national average.

6. Ohio
Wages in the state are a little below average, according to BLS, and unemployment is high at 4.2%.
Redditor DJWLJR says turbulent weather is one more reason to head for the hills.
“It's too hot, or too cold, and not enough of spring or fall. The weather here is erratic and sometimes very extreme.”

7. (tie) California
While work was the No. 1 reason to leave California, it was an even bigger reason to come. The land of Hollywood and Silicon Valley has an irresistible appeal.
However, the glamor comes with a price. California is the third most expensive place to live in the United States, beaten only by the District of Columbia and Hawaii on MERIC’s list.
Housing is particularly pricey, and depending on where you live, there’s always the chance your hard-earned property will be consumed by one of the state’s many wildfires.

7. (tie) Michigan
In a 2019 study, the Michigan Association of United Ways found that the number of households that can’t afford basic services is on the rise. Low wages are the norm, with most jobs paying less than $20 per hour.

9. North Dakota
North Dakota’s wide-open spaces are feeling even more empty these days.
While almost 60% of those who left did so for better job prospects, North Dakota’s unemployment rate is extremely low at just 2.4%. It seems finding a job isn’t hard; it just might not be a job you want.

10. Iowa
Golden cornfields make Iowa lovely to look at, but that hasn’t stopped people from looking elsewhere.
Work was by far the biggest reason to leave, inspiring over 68% of those who left. Despite its low cost of living and unemployment rate, Iowa hasn’t been growing very fast. According to census data, its population increased just 3.6% during the 2010s, well below the national average of 6.3%.

[Rasulis]

The States Americans Are Fleeing (and Where They're Going)
7. (tie) California
While work was the No. 1 reason to leave California, it was an even bigger reason to come. The land of Hollywood and Silicon Valley has an irresistible appeal.
However, the glamor comes with a price. California is the third most expensive place to live in the United States, beaten only by the District of Columbia and Hawaii on MERIC’s list.
Housing is particularly pricey, and depending on where you live, there’s always the chance your hard-earned property will be consumed by one of the state’s many wildfires.

I highlighted that part.

According to Pitchbook, U.S. venture capital investments as of Dec. 1 totaled $139.6 billion across 9,898 deals, compared with $137.3 billion across 12,189 deals last year. That makes 2020 the third straight year for U.S. venture capital investments to exceed the $100 billion mark. Sixty seven percent of that 139.6 billion went to California. Six thousand four hundred eighty five venture capital deals were made in California in 2020.

Some of the biggest venture capital deals of 2020 – Robinhood (1.2b), Affirm (0.5b), Chime (458m), Waymo (3b) and SpaceX (1.9b).

For every Oracle and HP that left California, a dozen new tech companies took their place.

There are more start ups in California than the rest of the country.

There are more unicorns in California than the rest of the country. In the two month stretch of October and November, 28 companies became unicorns in the Bay Area. The two figures below are based on data as of May 2020.




The most IPOs in the last decade. The most IPOs in term of numbers and sheer dollar size in 2020 by far.



#1 state for biotech with #1 hub (San Francisco), #3 (San Diego) and #6 (Orange County)

Tied with NY for Agtech.

#1 in high tech manufacturing (electronic and biotech) at twice the dollar amount of manufacturing in Texas.

California is not competing with Texas when it comes to tech. Austin is basically a satellite colony of Silicon Valley. The real competition for California is China. For the first time in 5 years, California generated more new unicorns in 2020 than China.

For entrepreneurs, especially tech entrepreneurs, California dreaming is alive and well.

[Elegiac]

California Derangement Syndrome, lol.

[w4rrenmenson]

As for me, I like California. Its nature is fascinating. I remember when I and my family were invited to California and I have only the best memories.

[Roxinius]

And these people leaving will undoubtly wherever they move continue to vote the same way keeping they cycle going of turning their new home into where they left

[Moadar]

California ruined gas cans. Never forget.

[Kathandira]

Funny thing is, without them "bigoted" rural folks, the big city folk wouldn't have any food or housing to accommodate their bigger brain and vastly superior intellect.

Se how stupid this trail of thought really is?

Indeed it is stupid. Our country is a unit, we need the coastal business folks, and we need the midland farmers and producers of goods. We need the harbors, we need the fields, we need the offices, and we need the transit. Anyone who thinks we can do without any part of the ecosystem we rely on are fools.

[Grapemask]

I hate California mostly because of the tech company culture. Really, I just hate how stupid tech culture is.

Listen, we're in a completely-connected digital world now. It made sense 30 years ago for all of the tech companies to hunker down in one tight-knit group in Silicon Valley - it was the best way to keep in touch with a rapidly evolving tech industry. But this is 2021. I haven't seen my own boss's face in 4 months, and I haven't seen it in person in at least 8. It no longer makes sense for the entire industry to be centered on a single point in California when they could get the same operating benefit working out of a cornfield in Iowa. Please stop.

Signed, a software engineer that doesn't want to move to god damn California.

[Rasulis]

I hate California mostly because of the tech company culture. Really, I just hate how stupid tech culture is.

Listen, we're in a completely-connected digital world now. It made sense 30 years ago for all of the tech companies to hunker down in one tight-knit group in Silicon Valley - it was the best way to keep in touch with a rapidly evolving tech industry. But this is 2021. I haven't seen my own boss's face in 4 months, and I haven't seen it in person in at least 8. It no longer makes sense for the entire industry to be centered on a single point in California when they could get the same operating benefit working out of a cornfield in Iowa. Please stop.

Signed, a software engineer that doesn't want to move to god damn California.

You don’t need to be in CA anymore for high paying tech jobs. I can only think of three reasons why you want to be in CA if you are in tech.

You are into bleeding edge research. The difference between top 100 universities and the rest is not the teaching quality, but the volumes of research that are being done there. Companies like to locate their research facilities close to these universities so that they can tap into these researches and recruit the graduate students. The Bay Area has the #2 and #3 ranked engineering schools in the world (Stanford and Berkeley). That’s why Microsoft and Amazon have their research campuses in the Bay Area. Despite Musk moving to Texas, RocketX research is still being done in CA because the state has the #1, #3 and #8 and #9 globally ranked schools in space & planetary engineering science (Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford and UC Santa Cruz). Same goes for biotech and biomedicine research - UCSF, UCSD, Stanford, UCLA, USC, etc. Marine biology - UCSB, UCLA, UCSD.

For those trying to raise fund for companies not expected to generate profit or revenue for 5 or even after 10 years, the Bay Area is probably their only option for funding.

Also, for those trying to grow their companies to 1 billion valuation, the Bay Area is also still the best place to do that.

To put this into perspective. The US has 206 unicorn companies as of November 2020. Currently SF metro area (SF-Oakland-Berkeley) has 106 unicorns, 43 in Silicon Valley, 15 in Southern California and at least 1 in the Sacramento area. That’s a total of 165 unicorn companies in CA out of 206 total in the US. Second only to China with 179 unicorns.

Note: Numbers are from early November 2020. It looks like November and December 2020 were good months for new unicorn companies. In US, thirty new unicorn companies were added to the list.

[Kaleredar]

Indeed it is stupid. Our country is a unit, we need the coastal business folks, and we need the midland farmers and producers of goods. We need the harbors, we need the fields, we need the offices, and we need the transit. Anyone who thinks we can do without any part of the ecosystem we rely on are fools.

The “rural folk” need to lay off thinking they have the understanding of how to, or deserve the right to, have a disproportionately large say in how the vastly more populated and complicated cities conduct themselves.

Farms/rural areas are and should be considered assets of the urban centers they serve and from whom they actively draw funding. This is especially the case in California.

It behooves the cities to operate their farming regions well. It behooves rural farmers to realize they likely don’t know shit about dick in regards to what it takes to run urban centers and how their needs might stack up against those things.

[Shadowferal]

CA just needs to be split in half.