
California Is Becoming Unlivable - umeshunni
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/can-california-save-itself/601135/
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fargle
I don't disagree, but this was a very narrow, and IMHO naive analysis.

PG&E is screwed because of years of graft and mismanagement. But now also
because they are now (thank you) saddled with decades of deferred maintenance
(technical debt) and lawsuits (thank you). But they can't raise rates and they
can't generate more revenue. So the only path is cutting costs (corners) more.
So... guess what isn't getting fixed anytime soon.

The "affordable" housing crisis is not a crisis, it's a bubble. Again (2007).
Again (1999). It will, again probably, fix itself but at the great expense of
mass foreclosures when it pops.

The fires are as much a constant as they are an effect of mismanagement and
inattention to the fact that Californian's love to build sorta very super
expensive suburban homes in the middle of tinder dry scrub-waste-land.

Whatever you blame on climate change, this is not it. This is building high-
density in the desert with blinders on. And blaming "Climate Change" isn't
going to clear the brush. Which BTW, we already pay the state, county and
cities large sums of taxes and fees to do. But (see PG&E) they don't. They
neglect more and more of the work to pad more and more of the bureaucrat
salaries, so they in turn can barely afford to scrape by in the "overpriced"
housing markets (and also afford to drive Audis/Teslas/Range Rovers, etc.).

So yes, California is becoming unlivable. And it's due to it having become
ungovernable and _economically_ unsustainable.

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CodeWriter23
IMO we need to repeal Prop 14 / 2010, the “Top Two Primaries” Act. I’m not
saying Republicans are any better than Democrats. I’d pick neither if there
was an actual choice (there isn’t thanks to that law). What I am saying, the
current SuperMajority has substituted “collegiality” for critical thought and
imposing tough choices, and chooses instead to vote as a bloc, called by the
Quarterback of their house. The Capitol is literally full of mostly empty
suits. Empty until some agenda to benefit their corporate donors is in play.

Having lived through it, I can say the gridlock of the past was preferable to
what we have now.

The bad part about Prop 14, it’s only reversible through another ballot
initiative. Without a groundswell of support to get this changed, someone is
going to have to raise tens of millions to pay for the signature collection
and the media campaign.

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masonic

      it’s only reversible through another ballot initiative
    

It was a Constitutional Amendment. It can replaced by another Constitutional
Amendment, which can come via the Legislature _or_ via initiative. Whichever
process is used, it must be approved by popular vote, but only a simple
majority.

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ScottBurson
I'm pretty sure I've read — quite possibly right here on HN — that with some
effort and expense, it's possible to build houses that will survive wildfires,
or at least have a pretty good chance of doing so. Seems like something we're
going to have to do more of.

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meed
Yeah, build actual houses not made of cardboard like in the rest of the
civilized world.

Paying 1.2M+ for a palework built with rotting wood in the Bay Area is simply
laughable at this point.

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musicale
The connection they are trying to make seems tenuous.

Fires seem to be exacerbated by decades of poor utility maintenance combined
with an abundance of dry and dead brush, warmer temperatures, and high winds.

None of those factors are caused by barriers to housing construction.

~~~
closeparen
The wildfires threaten humans because human settlement sprawls out into the
wilderness. The wilderness will always get dry and windy and sometimes sparky,
but it doesn’t have to have people living in it. It’s a policy choice to
accommodate population there vs. in cities.

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NotSammyHagar
California has dry weather, vegetation that can burn. When a strong wind
comes, the tiniest fire can spread like crazy. This can happen anywhere in
theory; it is just that the annual Santa Ana winds have met up with the dry
conditions and the endless fires started by humans and the power company.

All these problems can happen anywhere, bad power company, human started
fires. Who knows if new weather patterns will happen that lead to repeatable
strong winds for days at a time. The polar vortex seems to be a more recent
common phenomena, other weather patterns can change, this can happen anywhere.

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PaulHoule
It's like NYC in the 1970s.

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rajivpb
What were the similarities?

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perl4ever
Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded.

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pacala
Sounds like they've overshoot the ecological limits. Yet not a word on
shutting off the immigration firehose.

