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?

  • chickenwing@lemmy.filmEnglish
    35·
    1 year ago

    For better or worse California is a forward thinking place but also an exclusive one. It’s also very expensive to live there. The price to live in Austin has gotten crazy high and now there is a much larger homeless population. Austin’s solution to this now mimics San Francisco which is to pretend it’s not happening.

    Also California loves regulations for some but not others. For every smart regulation they have some “futuristic” new thing that annoys people. Silicon Valley is basically exempt from regulation at all.

    For a recent example the Waymo driverless taxis that break down in the road and cause traffic jams. They are only in 4 cities; LA and San Francisco of course, but now because of the influx of tech workers they are in Austin and Phoenix. Used to be that only San Francisco would be a guinea pig for tech and social experiments but now it’s spreading to where they moved to.