There aren’t a lot of brown people in Western Washington compared to California. Trust me, I grew up in the former and live in the latter. Seattle was the whitest place I’ve ever lived. Everyone is either white or Japanese, historically.
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Was it really whiter than SLC? Because damn.
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You got me there. I’d forgotten (suppressed) Whitey McWhite Salt Lake City and surrounding territory. We had one black kid in my middle school!
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Ha ha, fuck those people, amirite?
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I pay my taxes happily, but they don’t buy me the climate - that’s free for everyone. (But don’t forget your long pants and hoodies! ‘June Gloom’ is a thing.)
They buy me the largest civilian fleet of fire-fighting helicopters in the world, so that when the hills burn, the city doesn’t.
They buy me the water and power infrastructure that allowed this little chunk of paradise to outgrow its cowtown origins, and now supports millions where only thousands could live before, and allowed those millions to weather the worst drought ever seen in Calfornia with little more than a few minor inconveniences. (So far. Knock wood.)
They buy me a massive transport infrastructure that, contrary to popular belief, actually works - though not always as originally intended (-:
They buy me an increasingly sophisticated and rapidly-growing transit system
They’re buying me a serious makeover of our city streets, making them ‘complete streets’ - friendly to bicycles and pedestrians as well as cars.
They’ve bought me a massive reduction in air pollution in the 38 years I’ve been here.
They buy me some of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world, and the manpower to enforce them. (Businesses that like to pollute decry this as ‘excessive regulation.’ Mmmmkay.)
They’ve brought me a city that seems to be constantly improving — new parks; a revitalized river; restored wetlands; more natural areas and wildlife preserves; a vastly expanded mountain parks system; more water-conservation and reclamation with vastly expanded use of recycled water.
I could go on and on — but, yeah, I pay my high taxes with a grin.
Though it is true that the climate sure doesn’t hurt the cheerfulness quotient, either. (-:
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Just from looking at home improvement shows i could’ve told you prices in California are stupidly high to the point of ‘why do people come here?’
The house my family lives in, on an acre lot, cost us $160k. In California? Add a zero.
This is not sustainable.
Why are people fleeing California? Rising housing costs, taxes
In other news, fire is confirmed hot and water is possibly wet, film at 11.
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Because it is one of the largest economies in the country and because, unlike rustbelt cities or other decaying places, there are actually high paying jobs and careers for people in California. That’s why I live there. Oh, and quality of life (and politics) tends to be higher than, say, Topeka.
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As a kid in Columbus Ohio, I used to watch The Price is Right and be baffled by the prices. Everything was so expensive! Even things like ketchup and coffee seemed to be nearly double what it cost at the store near me. My mom explained that in California, where it was made, everything was pricier. And years later, when I lived out there, I discovered she was quite right.
These days, all of my Californian friends are either:
- Wealthy homeowners who’d gotten in early at a successful tech company
- Living with four or five other people in a tiny house/apartment and struggling to make rent every month
- Actively working on either moving to a rural part of the state or heading to the Pacific Northwest
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How about “non-wealthy homeowners who have two incomes in a couple from normal tech companies”? We only bought our house in 2006.
Nobody people in Portland or Seattle like more than immigrants from California.
Same in CO. There’s a saying that California transplants got for a long time here: "Go home, and take a Texan with you.
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Half of them are immigrants from California.
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