(06-05-2020, 12:13 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(06-05-2020, 11:06 AM)homebiscuit Wrote: The Bay Area was a nice place in the 80s. It seemed there was a nice balance of prosperity, affordability and sanity. 

I haven’t been there in many years, but what I hear, read and see on TV is not encouraging.

The people who live there and owned property before 1980 are still fine. They are called the Squire class. Their lives are getting less convenient and more costly all the time, but for them it's still a nice place to live.  But usually we ask, "is it a nice place to live?" in the sense of "should I move there?" and the answer to that is no. Unless you have a job offer significantly over $200k per year, or at least half a million for a down payment, you should not consider moving to the bay area.  You have a right to live in any of the 50 states, so pick somewhere else.

The Squires are vaguely aware that pretty much everything is less expensive and more convenient in the other 49 states.  Some of them justify it by pointing out how the weather is usually perfect, and yeah it usually is.  But they know the weather alone doesn't justify all the crap they put up with - how they could get a bigger house in a safer neighborhood with better schools with more backyard room for a dog for half the price pretty much anywhere else.  

So they console themselves by insisting, "I could never live in [FL, GA, SC, NC, TN, you name it] there are just so many racists and bumpkins there!". A cycle of radicalization and hate directed at the rest of the country, all for them to justify to themselves why they shouldn't move away.

How do I know this? My family, and my wife's family, both moved away from the bay area in the early 1980s. The people we left behind bring this stuff up a lot.