I see a sad pattern where government officials often conflate free markets with sound markets. They certainly overlap in many areas but non-competes are a classic market failure.
An alternative that I'm considering is Merced, which is roughly two hours from Silicon Valley. Merced is much smaller than Sacramento, so it lacks Sacramento's amenities and variety of neighborhoods. However, Merced is home to University of California, Merced, which opened in 2005. UC Merced has been expanding and is becoming more popular with students. While Merced does not yet have a college-town atmosphere (at least to me), Merced has the potential to develop this feel. Merced has the cheapest housing of all cities that host a UC campus (though Riverside comes close). A mortgage on a brand-new three-bedroom house in Merced is cheaper than the rent on a one-bedroom apartment in the Bay Area.
Finally, I'm also considering some of Southern California's desert cities that are part of the greater Los Angeles metro area, such as Palmdale and Lancaster in the Antelope Valley as well as the Inland Empire area. These areas have relatively affordable housing yet are very close to Los Angeles and all of its amenities.
Have you lived in SoCal before? Because this reads as kind of naive about the traffic patterns down here. I'm not trying to discourage you or anything but there's a certain reality you have to be capable of accepting about driving distance to driving time in SoCal, otherwise you will be absolutely miserable living here.
Although it's welcome to if it will, and that's why Texas is home to America's most diverse city, Houston
I live in Georgia and I can see the demographics changing quite a lot.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_2nd_congressional_di...
There is a bit more than just the usual gerrymandering at play here, though. Notice where the southern tip of the district is. The med center is deliberately split between (almost) every congressional district in Houston. That means that it gets multiple representatives in congress from multiple parties and remains well-funded. That's actually not a bad strategy, but it unfortunately gives the Republican state legislature a justification to hide behind for their blatant gerrymandering.
It's also why the current configuration isn't likely to change dramatically. Both parties want to ensure that the TX Medical Center has lots of representation in congress. As a result, Houston's core will always be divided among multiple districts. Republicans control the state legislature, so they make the districts have big "blobs" from outside the city, but if it were drawn by the democrats, it would still have this weird tendency to have narrow "arms" reaching towards the med center.
They think in terms of independence and consequence (sound red?) - work late and still want decent sleep? Well you have to eat McDonalds or make a turkey sandwhich, there is no luxury, no option of a small family restaurant sharing their homeland cuisine.
This makes for a peculiar set of people - people that are mad good at creativity within limitations, but are constantly defined by their lack of exposure to experiences and post-modern cultural poverty.
I pretty strongly disagree with this. Most people make meals at home which aren't necessarily "just a turkey sandwich." I don't even live in a particularly rural area (about 40 miles west of Boston) and I don't really have great meal options at 5pm much less 9pm. There are a few good pizza places, a Five Guys, some chain steak places, etc. but other than the odd pizza takeout I don't really eat out.
If I lived in a city? I'd probably go out or get takeout more regularly but I'd still cook most days.
The turkey sandwhich was meant to be a place holder for the general idea. Roughly, if you want to work long and hard to get ahead, usually food prep time is the easiest thing to cut to get a return on time invested in long term value. There are still super humans that have mastered meal prep (this may be you) but for the people I know, it’s hard to do all of these things well with limited options - which forces this consequence mindset.
That said, when I was commuting, I did have a lot of meals I could throw together quickly (or had made ahead)--probably faster than going out for takeout to be honest.
That's ignoring the major issue that all western states have: water rights. All the pish-posh of politics today has nothing on the fights over water in western states. In CO that pits the mountains against the ranchers, in CA that pits north against south; there is no red/blue when it comes to the real (and sometimes deadly) fight over water.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/02/upshot/americ...
What's left of real rural folk doesn't matter except in the local statehouse.
https://www.ktsa.com/abbott-larger-percentage-of-california-...
The demos have to change a lot in a lot of districts to overcome Gerrymandering for state and federal House representatives. Power isn't in the Governorship, the Lt. Governor controls the state Senate, budget and sits on the redistricting commission. They are elected from the state Senate members.
So TX could have a Democratic Governor and Senators but the local stuff will be red for a long time.
This reveals a tremendous lack of understanding of Texas politics.
Those Democrats are the Republicans today. Rick Perry, yes, that Rick Perry, was a Democrat.
All of Texas' major cities vote blue.
Travis County (Austin) is carved into 5 congressional districts.
https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2018-10-05/congressiona...
In context, I think your "they" refers to the lieutenant governor? That position is elected by the people of Texas, not (state) senators.
Texas is already pretty purple. Dallas/Houston/Austin are all very blue and growing like crazy.
Granted there are lots of reasons both would move like the needles and shit in the street. I feel on the political side it would be more likely for the reds to leave.
b/c reds are the only ones who have the money to relocate.
A "red" Californian transplant in some other state is more likely to vote for some insane leftist who wants to turn the economy inside out because they like their policy on police reform and they are blind to all of the things that should be red flags because those things are within the realm of normal back home.
And the same goes for a blue transplant from the reddest parts of the bible belt. They're more likely to vote for some insane moralizing right winger because they support legal weed despite having beliefs about homosexuals that are straight out of the 1980s (or whatever, I'm just making up somewhat realistic examples).
IMO the worst part is that both groups don't realize that the rampant ineffectiveness, corruption, back room dealing and bad treatment of the populace that governments in both red and blue states indulge in when they don't have to fear being voted out isn't something that's normal or something that should be tolerated.
If you live in a single party dump of a state you're eventually gonna stop smelling the dump.
Added bonus and what nobody here will tell you (and TX natives don't see) is that the Hill Country is absolutely beautiful. I was shocked when I moves here. I didn't know it but it's a huge wedding destination because it's so pretty. (Being in CA leaves an ignorant taste in your mouth about TX).
So no, it's not the bay area and we don't have parity right noq. As a bay area native, I would never go back. (Full disclosure: TX will get better than it is now but not that I'm a parent of a toddler, we're probably leaving and headed to New England. That's a discussion for a different topic though.)
ALSO, WTF is up with the whole mixing in Hispanic in such a strange way in the census? Seems super fishy like someone wanted to paint a certain kind of picture but if they just plainly list ethnicities they don't get to make the story they want to tell.
We're also more socioeconomically balanced and diverse.
https://wallethub.com/edu/most-diverse-cities/12690#detailed
On the page you linked, DC suburbs are listed under:
- Most educational-attinment diversity (#1 & #2)
- Most racial & ethnic diversity (#3 & #5)
- Most birthplace diversity (#1)
Moving out of California is like getting an immediate 25% raise.
I don't know much about Vegas, perhaps it's better.
I felt like the failure of the rail project from LA to SF was kind of a milestone showing just how dysfunctional the state is. California spent more money not building rail than it costs in many countries to complete a rail line.
High speed rail in Texas: 0 miles built, zero miles under construction, projects stuck in regulation waiting to begin work[1]
High speed rail in California: Active construction, most ambitious real HSR project in the country, project delay by regulatory hurdles… mostly because conservatives tried to sue it to death and failed.
Texans on their progress vs California: California is a failure.
This whole meme is because a couple struggling Silicon Valley companies who stopped being able to make it in SV decided to relocate to Texas to go out to pasture along with a couple rich people. Y’all think that being a launch site for SpaceX, which remains a company with a California headquarters, and a majority California positioned engineering team is hot stuff. Y’all celebrate how many tech jobs come to Texas when California companies open branch offices for support and secondary roles in your state and crow about how you one upped the Californians as you landed those amazing customer support roles by selling corporations pieces of Texans and the time of your citizens for cheaper. Then y’all lecture us about how you just got HP’s enterprise spinoff, when we have the actual HP… y’all need to stop claiming to be doing better at areas you’re doing worse on if you want to figure out how to actually do better.
[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/17/houston-dallas-bulle...
Overall, the project was a massive failure, and a political party that's in the minority isn't the reason.
(I’m much more aware of the California HSR project than most people on the Internet.)
It doesn't achieve any of the goals it set out to do, is way way over budget, and has been axed by the governor. That's a failure in my book...
That is, unless your definition of success is any mile of track laid, regardless of how it's used? That's a weird definition of success, if I may say so.
As-is, people will need to drive 2.5 hours from SF to Merced, wait for a train, take a 1.5 hour train ride to Bakersfield, then rent a car and drive another 1.5 hours from Bakersfield to LA.
All that saves about 1 hour of travel time (at the most!)... but requires renting a car, gas, etc.
Basically, this thing is completely useless. Finally the government realized this and cancelled the entire project.
Yet, the California Tax Payers that voted for the $30 Billion Bond Measure will continue to pay the extra taxes for decades to come...
You definitely don’t get high speed rail if you don’t build any.
I'd love to have a HSR in California - but it has to be built for a reasonable budget, and support itself with ticket fares, and go to destinations people actually want. Otherwise, it's just a waste.
Where in California, the central valley?