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Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

People show up in new area because its better than where they left and decide to vote for the same politicians that screwed up their old area. Happens all the time as logic is hard.

or to put it like one of the folks here: "you peed in your pool and moved to ours, don't do that again"

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The high cost of living in California has almost nothing to do with liberal politics or whatever you're trying to insinuate.

> The high cost of living in California has almost nothing to do with liberal politics or whatever you’re trying to insinuate.

It has a lot to do with economic success and the wealth produced thereby. The extent that has to do with the distinctive local politics of the state is another argument.

Yes, that's a much better way to put it. It just seems ironic to me that after decades of policies leading to a wealthy California the same detractors are claiming that the liberalism was the problem. My most charitable interpretation they think recently the policies have gotten too progressive and that's causing the exodus, as opposed to the wealth causing the high COL.

A lot of places are more wealthy or as wealthy as California. Why don't they have the same cost of living or higher?

Can you name such places? Someone mentioned Houston, but I honestly don’t know if their zoning laws are more liberal than ours (LA).

The high cost of living is almost entirely driven by land use restrictions and zoning. I don’t know if that’s “liberal politics” but if San Francisco adopted the housing and zoning of Houston it would be way cheaper.

If anything you could argue that's an anti-liberal attitude. It's great the Bay Area is so tolerant of different folks. Except that doesn't help out the black transgender teenager from Mississippi who can't move there, because he's priced out of even the lowest-end apartment. All because some millionaire home owners don't want to see their property values appreciate at a slightly lower rate.

> "you peed in your pool and moved to ours, don't do that again"

The book _Ishmael_ had an interesting perspective on that.

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