I recently moved to California. Before i moved, people asked me “why are you moving there, its so bad?”. Now that I’m here, i understand it less. The state is beautiful. There is so much to do.
I know the cost of living is high, and people think the gun control laws are ridiculous (I actually think they are reasonable, for the most part). There is a guy I work with here that says “the policies are dumb” but can’t give me a solid answer on what is so bad about it.
So, what is it that California does (policy-wise) that people hate so much?
California has progressive taxes. That means the wealthy pay a higher tax rate than the middle class. The wealthy have gotten taxes raised on the middle class and lowered on the wealthy in most red states. So they continue to pay for a disinformation campaign that rails on California taxes.
But CA continues to carry the US in GDP. It has a tropical weather, that allows outdoor activities nearly year round, not found anywhere else in the US. It also has a lot of support for lower and middle class (this shows up in places like infant mortality rates).
But like almost everywhere else in the world, except countries like Japan and China that have addressed planning at a federal level, they have not built houses near fast enough to keep up with demand. So the cost of living is high (They have changed laws recently to try to partially address it). But if you make enough to live there it is a wonderful place to live.
It has a tropical weather, that allows outdoor activities nearly year round, not found anywhere else in the US.
The winter months are too cool for tropical, they are below 18°C average. Most of the parts that aren’t desert or mountain actually fall into the Mediterranean classification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_California#/media/File:Köppen_Climate_Types_California.png
