
‘Go Back to California’: Wave of Newcomers Fuels Backlash in Boise - ilamont
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-10/go-back-to-california-wave-of-newcomers-fuels-backlash-in-boise
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shartshooter
I grew up in a rural PNW town where hatred of Californians was a way of life.
I ultimately ended up in California for the start of my career which gave me
the kind of upward mobility I’d never have had an opportunity to achieve.

Call it survivorship bias or whatever you want but without a stint in
California I would have likely never known it was possible to get a job other
than working at the lumber mill or driving a log truck.

I’ve since left the Bay Area due to rising costs and landed in a Boise-like
city. Costs in Redwood City at the time I left we’re $1-1.3MM for a starter
three bed, two bath home at 2k sq ft.

My home was purchased brand new, 25% larger than the Bay Area starters, 40%
cheaper, on the best street in the best neighborhood. Why would I not live
here?

Quality of life is through the roof, commutes are 10-15 mins at most and
everyone is happy and eager to chat about the fun things they do outdoors.

It’s obvious why non-natives want to live here. What’s infuriating is to see
how much the town has grown in great ways that are completely ignore by
_locals_.

Yes, rent and housing costs are way up. But so is infrastructure, tourism,
amenities, etc but it’s easier to flip off the dude in CA plates instead(which
happened to me shortly after moving here)

~~~
simonsarris
> Yes, rent and housing costs are _way up._ But so is infrastructure, tourism,
> amenities, etc but it’s easier to flip off the dude in CA plates
> instead(which happened to me shortly after moving here)

The way you describe this definitely makes me sympathize with the locals. What
good are "amenities" if you're priced out?

~~~
david38
This. These are all amenities for the rich.

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sparrish
I feel their pain. We here in Colorado are also seeing a big influx from
California and their stereotypical culture and politics is unwelcome to many
here. The "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps", "live-and-let-live" cowboy
attitude most Colorado-born folks here have clashes in no small way with what
most California's bring.

And why the heck can't they drive like normal people?! <grin>

Great thing about America, you don't like where you're at, you can move to
someplace else. That goes for Californias and for Coloradans.

~~~
mc32
The ironic thing is not that Californians are leaving the state. Why wouldn't
you want to leave a state with dysfunctional politics and questionable
policies?

The irony is they take their politics and want to impose the same policies and
politics in the new states --which if successful would create the same issues
they are running away from!

~~~
pmoriarty
The cause for the dysfunction in California politics is highly debatable. Is
it just too liberal? Or is it too conservative? Has it been coopted by
corporate interests, landowners and landlords? Or is it too sympathetic to the
homeless?

The list of purported reasons could and does go on and on, and everyone on
each portion of the political spectrum has their own take on it.

Where on the political spectrum these California expats fall and what (if
anything) they think makes Californian politics dysfunctional is anyone's
guess, but it's unlikely that they'll deliberately want to recreate any kind
of dysfunction. If anything, they'll want to fix what what was broken about
the way their state went about things.

~~~
chrisco255
Uhh, "is California too conservative?" is a rhetorical question I thought I'd
never hear. Democrats have supermajorities in state politics and all the major
cities are dominated by Democrats.

I think a problem will always develop at some point when a state becomes "too
conservative" or "too liberal". Truly, the tug of war of ideas between the two
is essential for good compromises to be worked out and to avoid the excesses
of either ideology.

That's an unpopular opinion these days but I think it's the reason for the
United States success.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Uhh, "is California too conservative?" is a rhetorical question I thought
I'd never hear. Democrats have supermajorities in state politics and all the
major cities are dominated by Democrats."_

It might come as a surprise to you, but there are conservative Democrats.

There are Green party and Peace and Freedom party (which seems to be a more
organized version of the Green party here in California) candidates in
California, but they virtually never get in to office. The last time I looked
Republicans won something like 40% to 50% of the votes in California (though
they didn't win quite as much this last mid-term election, probably due to
anti-Trump backlash).

So Democrats might hold the reigns of power for the moment, but Republicans
are in second place and had Trump not so soiled his party's image in all but
the most conservative strongholds in the nation, they'd be close at the
Democrats' heels.

In fact, even in the 2018 election, with Trump at his loudest and most
obnoxious, and with nearly the entire Republican party backing him, many
Republicans in California still got 40% or more of the votes in California,
and some of them even won.[1]

But, whatever the balance of power, the really really progressive or left-wing
parties have no share of it in California.

Now let's look at one of the prominent Democrats who got in to office
recently: Governor Newsom.

I just searched DDG for "newsom vetoed", and some of the top hits showed that
he vetoed:

1 - legislation that would have given Santa Cruz access to $16 million in
affordable housing bond funds

2 - two child support reform bills that anti-poverty advocates had hoped would
give a boost to low-income families

3 - a bill to give California one of the toughest recycling mandates for
plastic bottles in the nation

4 - a bill that would have given teachers six weeks paid leave after giving
birth

5 - a bill that would have let state workers bring their babies to work

6 - a bill aimed at stopping the Trump administration from rolling back
federal environmental regulations in the state

To me, all of these vetoes (which are anti-worker, pro-corporate, and anti-
environment) clearly show that he's, at least arguably, too conservative.

Or take a look at Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voted for the PATRIOT Act and
has been one of its most stalwart defenders, and also supported the Iraq war.
It's hard to argue that these positions are not "too conservative", at least
for California's left-wing reputation.

Not to mention that California has a gigantic prison industry and one of the
biggest prison populations in the world, is incredibly pro-corporate and pro-
capitalist (else the Bay Area would not be so loved by some of the richest,
biggest, and most powerful corporations on the planet). Many of California's
corporations, incidentally, support the military, which is not a left-wing
position, as the left-wing in the US tends to be anti-war and against the
military-industrial complex. So, once again, California scores "too
conservative" on this point.

If California was really as left-wing as Fox News and right-wing talk radio
paints it out to be, you'd have thought that it would have nationalized all
corporations or made them worker-owned and outlawed private property. But
nothing could be further from the truth. California is in many ways a
capitalist paradise, not a Marxist utopia. It's just that, yes, it likes to
keep its air and water clean, and has some worker protections, but (as
Governor Newsom's vetoes show) not nearly as much as it could have, had it had
a more left-leaning Governor, for example.

[1] -
[https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2018-general/sov/2018-c...](https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2018-general/sov/2018-complete-
sov.pdf)

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pmoriarty
Does anyone else find this sort of thing super depressing?

When I lived in New York and happened to travel outside the state, I'd
regularly get people I ran across telling me how surprised they were to hear
that I was from New York, because I was so nice and their impression (despite
usually never having set foot in New York) was that New Yorkers were assholes.

I told them that virtually everyone I ran across in New York was nice, but
that it was a gigantic city and there were all sorts of people there, and
because of that it's really not fair to paint all New Yorkers with such a
broad brush.

I'd get similar reactions when I traveled abroad and revealed to people that I
was from America. One person even told me that they thought every American
carried a gun. I had to tell them that, no, actually no one I knew owned a
gun, the majority of Americans nation-wide did not own a gun, and it was a
country of 300 million people of all sorts, many from other countries and of
many different cultures, different politics, different views of the world.
It's really not fair to paint all Americans with one broad brush.

So now I hear that in Idaho simply being from California (a state with a
population of 40 million people) could get you painted with a broad brush in
Idaho. It just seems so petty, insular, xenophobic, and close minded. Wouldn't
the world be better if we welcomed those who are different from us, at least
as long as they also wanted to live with us in peace?

Maybe mine's considered a stereotypically Californian attitude that would get
me pounded down in Idaho. If so, that's just really sad.

~~~
jakeogh
There's nothing wrong with having effective tools to protect life. If people
know you have an irrational fear of some object, they just wont tell you. I
live in Tucson, we have _plenty_ of guns, but in general, we carry them
conceiled. There's no pemission slip. Weapons are the ultimate form of
equality, they prevent the strong from ruling the weak. Places where only the
criminals are armed are totally different.

~~~
matchbok
> Weapons are the ultimate form of equality

...only if everyone is willing to carry? The lack of understanding here is
astounding. The claim of lax gun laws promotes safety has been debunked
hundreds of times. The average person does not have to have to carry a firearm
in order to be safe, believe it or not.

It's sad, really, how people think owning guns makes them safer or more tough.
Statistically the former is 100% not true. Maybe people have this fiction in
their heads that they will "save the day" from the bad guy (or government?)
Seems childish.

~~~
jakeogh
Tell that to a single mother. It's not your choice. It's a false argument that
everyone needs to carry. Hence police get phone calls... to bring guns.

Are you going to politely ask the murderer to wait 5 minutes?

Nice "stats" you have there.
[http://v6y.net/gun_stats.jpg](http://v6y.net/gun_stats.jpg)

~~~
matchbok
What % of single mothers are willing to own a gun? The vast majority of them
do not want that in their homes. This whole "wild west" mentality of gun
ownership is both frightening and sad. Violent crime is at historic lows.

And what's the end game here? Once everyone gets guns, the criminals start
using nerve gas? Would you suggest a single mother start keeping nerve gas in
her home?

~~~
jakeogh
TIL gas is a defensive weapon?

Roughly 50% of US households have a firearm. If someone can break that out to
single mothers that would be great, but as I said, it's not your choice to
make.

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-
media.ogg/case_data/2007/...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-
media.ogg/case_data/2007/07-290/20080626o_07-290.ogg)

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jchw
Only sort of related, but... I really wish there could be a social network
like Nextdoor that wasn't essentially flooded with NIMBYs. A local social
network seems like a good idea, but in practice Nextdoor is the absolute worst
social network I've ever encountered in two different locations that I've
tried it. (And one of those locations was Michigan, so this isn't just
California social issues causing this.)

~~~
mc32
What's funny about NextDoor is they constantly complain about homelessness,
property crime, assault, etc., but continue to vote in the same kind of
progressive supervisors who solve nothing. I see a few finally having it and
saying they will look to more centrist candidates --but it's not going to
change overnight.

~~~
dmitrygr
Because (to be 100% Frank) nobody wants to pay to fix it, they just want the
problem away from them and out of sight.

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jt2190
Something about this reminded me of Hunter S. Thompson’s campaign for Sheriff
of Aspen, CO:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Aspen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Aspen)

~~~
pmoriarty
There's also a great book called _Cows Are Freaky When They Look at You_ [1],
which is about California hippie pot farmers who picked up and moved do rural
Kansas in the 60's to grow their crop, and the boggle-eyed reactions they got
from the locals.

[1] - [https://www.amazon.com/Cows-Freaky-When-They-
Look/dp/0922820...](https://www.amazon.com/Cows-Freaky-When-They-
Look/dp/0922820139/)

------
temeculamary
I find it interesting that Californian are disliked so much. California is
made up of ALL walks of life. Every nationality comes to California and many
leave after they see just how expensive it is to live . What I don’t
understand with the way the Boisians mindset is, the locals don’t like that
the prices are going up. Who is selling their homes at premium prices? Locals
cashing in on the supply and demand. Yes, your neighbors and friends. The
question really should go to your government, what are you doing to help with
this supply and demand that is driving the prices up? Why aren’t wages going
up as there should be an abundance of construction jobs building new homes to
help with demand. Not all Californian are rich, just middle class people who
have been taken out of the housing market in California by those coming into
California. We don’t all agree with the way Californian is being run so we
want a better way of life, just like those in Boise. Again your anger should
be directed at your government officials. What are the doing to help with the
cost of living there

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Jojo2019
I moved to ID back in 1999, and it was a great place - hardly any traffic,
people were friendly, everyone accepting of each other, etc. Within the last 5
years, I have seen an influx of people from AZ and CA moving in that is
changing all that. They are bringing in the big city "snottiness" and
behaviors that come with it. Also, they are bringing in their liberal
attitudes to a state that is historically conservative and Republican. I left
recently out of disgust, as it's not the place I moved to and loved. A lot of
the people from CA seem to be standoffish to anyone not born and raised in the
western states, and it shows in their cliquish attitudes. I won't be back to
the Boise area in the future unless it changes.

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Camillo
> One salvo in Richey’s battle against newcomers was his property tax
> proposal, which he called Proposition Zero One Two Three. His basic tenet:
> The longer you live here, the less you pay. Sixty-year residents would pay
> no property taxes, while newcomers would shoulder the burden.

That's just going to make the Californians feel right at home.

~~~
Nasrudith
That brings to mind the concept of a stronf interpretation of the 14th
ammendment protecting against bad laws and promoting justice.

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blissofbeing
We are all more connected than we realize. Issues in California are issues for
everyone, this protectionist attitude gets us nowhere in today's world where
it's easier than ever to live anywhere.

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masonic
Marina Hinojosa of PBS did an episode of "America by the Numbers" hunting
racism in Idaho:

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=R2TDc1lgZrQ](https://youtube.com/watch?v=R2TDc1lgZrQ)

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knolax
Exaggerated clickbait.

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algaeontoast
Please don’t come to Austin.

