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?
on first reflection i think i would give a knee-jerk reaction, and spout some culture war nonsense about texas. you did get me there.
so, putting my preconceptions aside, and looking it up, and learning that texas is #2 on the list? on reflection, i’m quite happy to admit that i am wrong. success breeds jealousy for texas as well. by the looks of it, most us states too, damn. today i learnt that 33 us states are in the top 100 of sub-national economies. most of those have reasonably fairer gdp per capita figures too. grass is greener and all that…
i can only speak from personal experience, but please take a look at england. it’s #3 on the list of sub-national economies, yet has only 43k gdp/capita(adjusted for purcahsing power). texas has 80k, cali has 90k, and new york has 102k per head (!!!). knowing that on average, you can buy twice as much stuff or more than us, i feel like we are being scammed compared to you guys. we have all the issues you described too, with half of the wealth per person. 🙁
lastly, i will say that i was using gdp as a broad stroke indicator. no indicator is without faults, but i do believe it’s useful as a one-liner answer to the OP’s question. i.e, despite all the problems, cali is the strongest performing state. that must stand for something?
There are better metrics to measure quality of life. Like for example, the Better Life Index by OECD. This index takes a look at housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work life balance and gives a much more comprehensive view of a country’s performance than just GDP. Countries like China have very high GDP and countries like Qatar have very high GDP per capita, yet neither of these places are good places to live in or offer a good quality of life to the average citizen, but the GDP figures don’t show this. That’s why I don’t take these figures seriously. We need something like the Better Life Index for the individual states here to really get an idea of how things are going. I have a feeling that states like Maine, Vermont, or Utah which have low GDP and GDP per capita offer a much better quality of life to their average residents than states with high GDP and GDP per capital like Massachusetts, New York, or California.
i got to searching, and yeah, that’s a much better system.
and they do have the state figure breakdowns you are after, as individual scores for “regions”
have fun! (click here)