California’s population shrinks for third straight year

Moved from the bay to Texas because of everything i heard. It was such a horrible experience. The heat, the bugs, the lack of density.<p>So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months.<p>So many people want to live in California which causes more issues

California is a great state in many ways, but it&#x27;d be a stretch to say it&#x27;s even half assed a solution to its housing problem: they&#x27;ve quarter assed it at most. And it does someone no good for a state to be great in many ways if they can&#x27;t afford to live there.<p>The situation has been dire for some time, but all they do are small incremental steps towards building more housing, it&#x27;s nowhere close to what&#x27;s necessary. Unfortunately, the NIMBY, anti-housing sentiment is very strong.

This is “gross” decline, the backing data has a “net” migration of -113k. NY actually had a much higher net decline at -180k which translates to a 3x higher decline as a percentage (0.9% vs 0.3%). This isn’t necessarily a CA thing as people keep positioning it, it’s a high taxes among other things (like housing, and high mobility)

California also has the highest population. I&#x27;d be interested the see the &quot;churn %&quot; for each state - the raw numbers are basically meaningless

Unpopular opinion. It’s ok to have outbound migration. California has close to 40 millions people. That’s more than lots of countries out there.

Not surprising when you look at California&#x27;s home prices.<p>The median home sold from Marin County to Santa Clara County is $1M+.<p>That&#x27;s the same land mass as from Times Square to the Maryland border.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;nextdoorsv&#x2F;status&#x2F;1440035534693232640" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;nextdoorsv&#x2F;status&#x2F;1440035534693232640</a><p>California is NIMBYism at its worst: the far left opposes more housing, the far right opposes more housing, and the center is sick of traffic from more housing.

The CA government has a budget the size of Finland’s GDP ($250B), if they wanted to fix the housing issue, they could.<p>But not enough people do want it fixed because they are trapped with their real estate investment which they can’t adored to have decrease in value.

People are doing the math. If you make enough money in California you pay 10% of your income in taxes. First of all, what do you get from that 10% you pay that don&#x27;t get in other states with lower or no income taxes? For the people paying the taxes the answer is not much. People also fail to account for the fact that the 10% they are paying is 10% of their GROSS income, not net after federal taxes. So if you are already paying 30% of your income in taxes that 10% can be a material increase in the quality of your life. It&#x27;s the equivalent of receiving 16% more net income. Also subtract what you pay in increased food prices and increased housing costs you will be saving much much more by leaving CA.<p>People in California seem to believe that other parts of the country with lower taxes are hell on earth, they aren&#x27;t. When I moved to San Francisco, I had many conversations with people denigrating my home state of Florida. In retrospect I can see this for what it was, a coping mechanism for having to live in such a terrible place and pay an absurd amount of money for the privilege of doing so.<p>The reason California has seen such economic success can be attributed to proximity to the fastest growing economies and largest manufacturing hubs in the past 30 years and a little luck. If you really need to live on the west coast, Washington state is a much better option.

Please don&#x27;t editorialize titles. The submitted title (&quot;340k people moved out of CA in 2022, most of any state&quot;) was misleading, as hellisothers pointed out (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34119430" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34119430</a>).<p>&quot;<i>Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don&#x27;t editorialize.</i>&quot; - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a><p>If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that&#x27;s fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else&#x27;s: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;sort=byDate&amp;type=comment&amp;query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;so...</a>

I like California a lot but with the cost of housing what it is I know I’ll probably never put down roots. We can talk policy this and that until our heads are spinning but at the end of the day I need to live my life.<p>I have my eye on Chicago. There’s always something going on, it’s very multicultural, and housing is extremely affordable.

At 300k to 400k, how many could be accounted for by lockdown&#x2F;student effects? Australia where I live is 26m down by similar order of magnitude that many due to insufficient in migration, and drops on tertiary students from overseas. (Queensland, my home state which is very like California according to some, is a net inwards growing population. People like Sunshine and beaches)<p>How much is net decline by excess deaths? Probably a low 20k-30k figure (based on AU excess mortality. Web says 28k), but perhaps CA population had excess older demographic Sunbird type people and they relocated?<p>It would also cut across all classes. I wonder how much is work forced translocation, by the company more than the individual. If Boeing (bad example I know given its Seattle not Los Vegas, so ignore the out of state issue please) stopped an entire line but jobs open up on the east coast for other production lines then internal relocate is cheaper than hire local sometimes.<p>The Californian economy is huge. Is it maybe moving to fintech and IPR with labour cost out of state?

Hardly surprising, considering that the state has failed massively to tackle homelessness and is perpetually on the edge of ecological ruin. Massive, long-lasting drought that may turn the most fertile soil in perhaps the entire world into a dustbowl, and failure to bury power lines + casual arson causing massive wildfires that regularly burn down lots of property. Of course, this doesn&#x27;t even account for the major problem that will ruin the entire west, which is the rapidly shrinking Colorado river and its watersheds.<p>The law and order situation in the cities is also poor, and open drug use has turned LA, SF and Oakland into urban hellscapes that are an eyesore.<p>The entire country is in a phase of migration to the south. Westward migration continues but the main trend is migration to the South which is relatively unencumbered by wacko environmental regulation prone to abuse and a lower tolerance toward crime. Also has a better water situation I suppose and overall courteous and friendly people also.

How smug are Californians that those who always disagree with them always “must be Republicans”? They really said people are leaving the state because of “political reasons” (ie, “they’re Republicans, aka, ‘non-regrettable attrition’”)? Couldn’t be all of the other reasons could it.<p>I say this as a California native who left for a litany of reasons, last of them being the politics.

My big hope for WFH was that it would allow all the people who don&#x27;t even like the Bay Area to finally leave and bring rents down (reducing demand being the only other way besides building to reduce rents).

The title has been editorialized in contravention of HN guidelines.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a><p>&gt; <i>Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don&#x27;t editorialize.</i>

Quality of life goes down every year here and it becomes more lawless feeling. There are rampant homeless camps in most big cities--Oakland looks worse than a third world country. I can&#x27;t even imagine running a small business here and what a nightmare it would be.

California is a beautiful place and I love living there. My experience as an immigrant has highlighted a number of problems though that nobody talks about. It is an extremely expensive place to have a normal quality lifestyle. People endlessly ghost you, waste your time, burn you out and burn your money, trick you with their fake friendlyness. Everyone has a game plan that you only find out later. It is much less open to immigrants and diversity than you think. It is much less likely you will be funded than you think. It is much less certain someone will take a chance with you than you think. In silicon valley people have a very narrow mindset about building businesses and are clueless about what is happening elsewhere and what is worth funding and what not. California mostly seems to run on marketing. Living in an expensive place is no problem IF companies are willing to give you business or a high paying job. Unfortunately because of the endless ghosting and fakeness all your savings might be gone before you start making money. I think this is the real problem of California. I have had very few people hand me opportunities here, so the “taking chances” and “risk taking” seems to be long gone or maybe that’s done only when they already know you for many years which basically means that nepotism is a major factor in success. I still love California and I’m thankful I’m here. But the cost combined with slow speed of doing business and making decisions resulting in real income are a problem. It basically means you already need to be semi rich which is really not what the spirit of silicon valley should be.

Here’s a US Census chart of population change across all 50 states (shown as percent of population). It sounds like a lot of people, but as a percentage of total population it doesn’t seem like California is particularly notable.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.census.gov&#x2F;library&#x2F;visualizations&#x2F;2022&#x2F;comm&#x2F;percent-change-state-population.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.census.gov&#x2F;library&#x2F;visualizations&#x2F;2022&#x2F;comm&#x2F;perc...</a>

I moved to Texas during the pandemic, primarily because I didn&#x27;t want to live in a city with heavy lockdowns or with most people risk averse. I think it&#x27;s great that different cities had different responses, but my preference was to live somewhere that chose normal life over preventing the spread.<p>I moved back at the beginning of 2022 though, primarily because SF had reopened enough. I suspect that there are many people like me, although I also suspect that this change is not going to reverse any time soon.

California is great. It&#x27;s a shame about the people though.

My friends from IT sector left California exactly two years ago (just saw their memories on Facebook). There were a group of six. They did it on a private jet. There was no comment about housing prices, only about, I quote, &quot;crazy commies took over the beautiful state&quot;.<p>I don&#x27;t know a lot about California politics, but maybe housing crisis is just a symptom of something more?

By the next decade, at this rate, California will lose 5 more of those representative seats to the U.S. House.<p>Furthermore, California rural areas will be even more severely, disproportionately UNDER-represented.

Very interesting interview packed with demographics&#x27; science: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uNdnlrkx-wg">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uNdnlrkx-wg</a>

I hope less people live there, too crowded.<p>Making western nevada and much of the mojave habitable would go a long way. Artificial rivers and lakes, importing sand and desalination (at scale to develop more sustainable water systems not on its own) and bullet trains would be ideal. The money and tech is there just not the collective will.<p>Places like Parhump NV, Bishop CA and Reno,NV have huge potentia as population centers.<p>It&#x27;s so nice there from the mojave to the eastern sierra range and tahoe. Bullet train connecting these areas to PNW and coastal CA plus more water is needed. Why wouldn&#x27;t you live the towns I mentioned above if LA and SF are 1-2 hours away at most and Seattle is half a day away at most even from LA?

I just had a massive realization and I want to start sharing it around. It&#x27;s funny that this happened to be on the front page at the same time<p>I think we&#x27;re at a major inflection point in society and need to make some MASSIVE intentional changes to how we live<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kemendo.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;TEOTWAWKI.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kemendo.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;TEOTWAWKI.html</a>

Births outnumber deaths in California, and yet the U.S. Census Bureau says the population shrank again as more than 300,000 people moved out of the Golden State.<p>The federal agency released these new numbers Thursday showing a third consecutive year of decline.<p>In 2020, California’s population contracted for the first time in state history, a drop that contributed to the state losing a seat in the House of Representatives.

Obviously click bait title - comes out once per month - usually FoxNews. But I whole heartedly encourage people to leave. Housing is expensive - earthquakes - liberals ick. Much better in Texas. You can own whatever gun you want. Want to shoot animals - Texas has hogs galore - you can hire a helicopter and shoot the from the air. Life couldn&#x27;t get much better:)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8ir6LDRH7J0">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8ir6LDRH7J0</a>

It should and will continue to! Paying $3,200+ for a 2-bedroom is insane!

My suspicion is the housing market sorely needs investment forcefully pushed out of single family housing and (maybe&#x2F;less convinced) cooperative apartment complexes forcefully pushed into market. There’s a single cooperative in my entire state and they’ve stopped taking applications due to the wait list. In any event, it’ll be interesting to see what the end of this decade and beginning of the next looks like as the Boomer held homes start to open up. Will the population demographics change to need fewer or more homes?<p>(Btw, that is altogether way too long to wait.)<p>I tried to bootstrap the rent&#x2F;mortgage trade off discussion to some older gen-Zers and millennials at work recently. Couldn’t get far at all until I got talked over about the financial superiority of owning. Frustrating times.

What was the name of the group that out purchased the SacBee?

So when do rents and house prices go down?

I am glad to be a part of this trend in 2022. Good bye Californian suckers. Hello Texas. No more mooching off of my money, handing it to illegal aliens.

You might think this translates to less population congestion, but the reality is they want to raise rents and pack 4-8 immigrants or migrant laborers where previously one or two people lived. The wealth of California is dependent on cheap labor to obtain. They would have to sell if even the leaf blower guy was paid real wages. Rich and poor only, no mids.