Calfornia...Has it been destroyed by left-wing polices?

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last time i was in seattle, you couldn't get tuna, sale or no, for less than $2 per 5 oz. can. some sales. we here out in the sticks get a lot more sales.

I was shocked to learn that Maryland has the 7th highest COL if you include DC which is 2nd after Hawai'i, but just like WA there are way more affordable areas, I would not expect COL to be very high in Dorchester County for example.

am taking it that Dorchester County is rather like Mason County here, no real employers other than the hospital and the police/sheriff/public utilities. most of the subsidiary businesses dried up when simpson lumber closed down. just pofolk and retirees on pensions out here, aside from the swells who live near the water, millionaires all.

Without doing any research I would say that Dorchester has a sizeable poultry and seafood industry. I believe most of their employees are Hispanic. Also vegetables in Summer. I believe it used to be majority Black but no longer is, make of that what you will.

a lot of hispanic folks here also, surviving on the margins. Dorchester sounds nicely working class.

In inner-city Seattle, I doubt there are many large supermarkets----only small corner convenience store-type places. What are called "bodegas" in NYC.

You would have to travel on the Interstate a few or more miles, to far-out King County, or nearby counties, in order to find a large supermarket with a big parking lot. These supermarkets tend to have better products, and lower prices with frequent sales.

Despite the high MD COL in general, Baltimore is a surprisingly inexpensive city to live in. It's not so dense that if you own a cheap but serviceable set of wheels you'd have trouble parking it, also gas prices are nothing like the West Coast. If you want to know what Baltimore is like, it's changed since the heyday of John Waters but it's still the same place and Waters is still there. But you have to really like city life to appreciate it.

southern king county would be where you'd find more walmarts. king county and seattle are very spread-out.

can you rent an apartment there for less than a thou?

They are not in the majority-----but they exist (apartments for less than $1,000 in Baltimore City).

You have to make sure the neighborhood is decent.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 14 Nov 2022, 9:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

No data but you could probably get Section 8. There are in fact well to do folks there but widespread gentrification just never happened there OTOH it's not a war zone like East St. Louis or Camden NJ. Large sections will remind you of The Wire and that's not going to change any time soon.

Which policies? People who say this don't really have anything to point to that isn't already going on in most of the country.

What happened to California is they have had multiple "gold rushes" that jam people into closer spaces.

Combine this with land use restrictions that are fairly similar to land use restrictions in my area - North Georgia - and its a recipe for skyrocketing housing costs. California has done a lot of policies to reduce density, which drives up housing costs. But as I mentioned, so does my area. The main difference is my area doesn't have entry level tech jobs that pay six figures.

In my area, every apartment complex must have two parking spaces per bedroom. So a 2 bedroom apartment must have 4 parking spaces. In addition, it must have a pool and two tennis courts.

So I can't just convert an old building into a 10 unit apartment complex. I have to jump through a TON of hoops to make this happen and its probably not worth it. Result: it raises the price of existing land and rent of existing apartments. Its a way to keep competition out.

The damage is not too severe mainly because people aren't trying to move here in droves. But if we suddenly had millions want to move here, you'd end up with large tracts of land going unused while people sleep in their cars. They announced a new road expansion here - its going to take over 15 years! None of that really matters in low density areas, but if we had a lot of really high growth that red tape would result in inflexible infrastructure as well as land use policies.

In short, you take any area in the US and toss a few million people in and it will end up with high housing costs and increased homelessness.

California does a lot of stupid stuff - but some of it doesn't get noticed because it benefits "the right people."

California has an agriculture industry that would not exist without massive state subsidies for water. There is no reason why people should pay to grow crops where there is no water - but thats what they are doing!

However, you can say the same or similar things about a lot of US agriculture - it gets the protection and subsidy from the government. Its not small farmers anymore - its big business so its strange that we are doing this at all anymore.

So, take for example the viral videos of people shoplifting in San Fran stores and the cops not going after it.

You know what the solution would be? Raise taxes. You know who would complain about that? The very same people who complain about the crime.

California's cities are a lot like Atlanta where I live. If you look at the cost of living in the city, its huge. But most people commute to areas where its lower. You go 1 hour outside San Fran and its not like people are shoplifting like crazy there.

Last edited by stratozyck on 14 Nov 2022, 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

Or you could just tax the rich and give super poor people more in welfare payments, which would still be a lot less than what more well off people earn and the poor people would be happier.

GDP isn't really an accurate measure of living standards since if wealth is concentrated at the top of the economic pyramid in a given country, then it doesn't matter how much wealth there is, if no-one but a small few people are receiving benefit from it.

I live in a mixed area, it's full of houses and apartments but we have a grocery store and a department store within 2 miles of my home. Plus a shopping center that is about 3 miles away. You can easily get to by light rail. Plus there is a Wal greens near me. Instead of shutting down these places since low income people rely on them, they have increased security and cameras and music playing and have limited entrances now to the big stores. Plus they lock things up like baby formula and cosmetic stuff. It's very sad and I feel bad for the poor.

There are lots of places where there is no public transportation to get to those places "a couple of miles away."