Why do conservatives keep saying California has "collapsed"?

[136or142]

Who’d want to pay over half a million dollars to live in a failed state overrun with homeless people sh**tting on streets, Hispanic gangs roaming neighborhoods, drugs everywhere, and rampant forest fires? You’re either a techie or you’re struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. Not good.

Yep, its late 80s glory days are far in the past.

I don't know if these things have gotten worse or not in California, but if you think this is new, you need to see the 1993 movie Falling Down.  You could also see Randy Newman's music video from 1983 "I Love L.A."  The song was not used as the theme for the 1984 Olympics (Newman was asked to write such a song) but he wrong this subtly satirical song instead.  The lyrics (and the music video) largely alternate between things Newman thinks of as positive and things Newman thinks of as negative.


Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He's down on his knees
Look at these women
There ain't nothin' like em nowhere

Yes, beautiful women, but the lyrics were also a comment on rampant sexism and shallowness.  There is no question this is the case as Newman was already by this time known for his digs at prejudice and prejudiced people by seeming to take their side.  His most famous songs up until this was  'Short People' ("Short people got no reason to live.")  The idea was to argue prejudice against something ridiculous and so over the top that it showed the absurdity of prejudice (unfortunately I don't think it succeeded and many well meaning people actually took the lyrics seriously - especially the 'can't we all get along?' liberal types) and his song "Sail Away" which was written from the perspective of a slave owner.

Century Boulevard (We love it)
Victory Boulevard (We love it)
Santa Monica Boulevard (We love it)
Sixth Street (We love it, we love it)
We love L.A.

I understand this alternates between well regarded streets and poorly regarded streets.

As Newman undoubtedly expected given his sardonic nature (especially after his experience with Short People) regarding the shallowness of the people of Los Angeles (in 1983 anyway) most people only listened to the upbeat music and the 'we love it' chant in the chorus and the song became something of an unofficial anthem for L.A.  

Falling Down is a political movie that is regarded incorrectly by many as a character study.  It is not.  It is a political commentary on the 'angry white male' of the late 1980s/early 1990s (the precursor of today's idiot Trump cultists) who regarded Rush Limbaugh and then Newt Gingrich as their hero, as seen through the perspective of an angry white male living in Los Angeles.  The film correctly predicted the fall of the conservative white male from power in California:

In an interview less than a week before the Falling Down's release, screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith gave his interpretation of what the movie was about. "To me, even though the movie deals with complicated urban issues, it really is just about one basic thing: The main character represents the old power structure of the U.S. that has now become archaic, and hopelessly lost. And that way, I guess you could say D-FENS (the main character played by Michael Douglas, or, actually, his vanity license plate) is like Los Angeles. For both of them, it's adjust-or-die time...

However, for the purposes here, everything mentioned about being bad about California was included in that movie back in 1993.

[136or142]

In answer to the question, it's because conservatives lie.  They lie frequently, much more so than liberals do.  To believe anything else is false equivalence.  It starts with conservative politicians, but then it trickles down. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/politifact-lies-republicans-vs-democrats/314794/

So, the simple answer to this question is: conservatives lie that California has 'collapsed' because it is a liberal state and because they know other conservatives will believe them regardless of it not being true. 

[136or142]

Newly moved to the West Coast (albeit not California), I get the impression that the way in which liberals try to deal with poverty on the state and local level is fatally flawed. For example take the homeless situation in Portland for example, I get bombarded with campaigns to pass bond issues to "deal with" the problem by enacting a government program, yet no effort is made at all to alleviate the structural problems that result in such extreme problems with homelessness in the first place: the high cost of living, restrictive zoning laws, land use policies, NIMBYism, tolerant drug culture, the state lottery, etc. Oregon is willing to pay lip service to the problem of poverty, and indeed runs massive campaigns upon it, but completely unwilling to even seriously consider the sort of lifestyle changes needed to address the structural causes of poverty.

'Tolerant drug culture?'  You're now either a nanny state liberal or an authoritarian conservative?  Obviously one would be a fool to believe that legalizing drugs would lead to Nirvana (although it might for a few people) just as one would be naive to believe that California is either a Utopia or has collapsed, however, I think it's pretty clear that the #1 problem with illegal drugs is that they are illegal.

One article on the subject:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/british-columbia-health-officials-call-for-drug-decriminalization/article29716257/

[136or142]

The median home costs more than half a million dollars. What more do you need to know?

That's the inverse of collapse. It's an indication of extreme growth, in which housing supply has not kept up with demand.

California is not growing any faster than the rest of the country in terms of GDP, population, or wages per worker, and it's growing much more slowly compared to other Sun Belt states. States like Texas that have actually experienced "extreme growth" over the past couple of decades have built large numbers of new homes. About the only kind of growth in which California now leads is in its homeless population.

Anyway, "collapse" as applied to California refers to dysfunction and quality of life, not population size. It ranks 49th in the country in housing supply and is building tens of thousands of units per year when market analysts are calling for hundreds of thousands. Home ownership is completely unaffordable for the median family. Renting consumes an enormous portion of working people's incomes. Group housing arrangements and extreme commutes have become common. It may not be the Crisis of the Third Century, but it's a f*cking disaster nonetheless.

Completely agree.

Collapse is too strong a term, but unsustainable dystopia definitely isn't.

On a side note, if the Republicans ever decide to seriously try to win non-white votes, "build baby build" wouldn't be the worst way to do it.

Housing costs are high in most major cities throughout the world.  It isn't just a question of building, it's a question of building the right type of housing.  If the housing is condominiums with expensive amenities or single detached homes, none of that building will be affordable for poorer or middle income people no matter how much is built. The problem from here in Greater Vancouver anyway (where we have high property prices regardless of how much housing is built: from not as much in the city of Vancouver - though more than the developers claim, to much more housing construction in Surrey.)

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/average-housing-costs
https://www.langleytimes.com/news/it-will-cost-you-1-million-to-live-in-langley/

The problem here is that the developers are only telling a half-truth about NIMBYISM. What they leave out is that the developments they're most interested in (because they earn the largest return) is the single detached homes and the condominiums with expensive amenities because that's what the wealthy and upper middle class want to buy.

Property redevelopment doesn't lead to lots of homes for middle income people on down (except for the government mandated homes) it leads to gentrification.

[136or142]

Newly moved to the West Coast (albeit not California), I get the impression that the way in which liberals try to deal with poverty on the state and local level is fatally flawed. For example take the homeless situation in Portland for example, I get bombarded with campaigns to pass bond issues to "deal with" the problem by enacting a government program, yet no effort is made at all to alleviate the structural problems that result in such extreme problems with homelessness in the first place: the high cost of living, restrictive zoning laws, land use policies, NIMBYism, tolerant drug culture, the state lottery, etc. Oregon is willing to pay lip service to the problem of poverty, and indeed runs massive campaigns upon it, but completely unwilling to even seriously consider the sort of lifestyle changes needed to address the structural causes of poverty.

'Tolerant drug culture?'  You're now either a nanny state liberal or an authoritarian conservative?  

C-OR

?

[136or142]

Newly moved to the West Coast (albeit not California), I get the impression that the way in which liberals try to deal with poverty on the state and local level is fatally flawed. For example take the homeless situation in Portland for example, I get bombarded with campaigns to pass bond issues to "deal with" the problem by enacting a government program, yet no effort is made at all to alleviate the structural problems that result in such extreme problems with homelessness in the first place: the high cost of living, restrictive zoning laws, land use policies, NIMBYism, tolerant drug culture, the state lottery, etc. Oregon is willing to pay lip service to the problem of poverty, and indeed runs massive campaigns upon it, but completely unwilling to even seriously consider the sort of lifestyle changes needed to address the structural causes of poverty.

'Tolerant drug culture?'  You're now either a nanny state liberal or an authoritarian conservative?  

C-OR

?

TJ's avatar is C-OR or Constitution Party-Oregon. A Liberal conservative he ain't.

Oh, thanks.