So you had some tacos and craft beers in hipster cafes and and now understand drugs, homeless, cartels and criminal activity along the border? What is the point of your comment?

Maybe you should visit scenes like these to get an understanding of the topic discussed: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-11-24/cartel-c...

Yep, it's sad that we are selling all of that ammunition into Mexico. The fact that the United States is supplying the cartels with military-grade weapons and ammunition is a tragedy, and my heart goes out to the Mexicans whose lives have been ripped apart by weapons and ammunition imported into the country from the United States.

The drugs coming this way I couldn't give less of a shit about. I'm pro-decriminalization anyway.

I hope that doesn't stop anyone from spending time in Baja, California. It is truly one of the hidden gems of the area. The people are wonderful, and the region has a lot to offer. Your least pleasant experience will be dealing with US Customs and Border protection on the way back in. Those people have a real stick up their ass.

To add on to the understanding thing above, I did a master's in International Affairs with a focus on Latin American Politics and a special interest in the Drug War in Mexico at UCSD's school of Global Policy and Strategy. I took a class from David Shirk. My final GIS project was tracing narcotics trafficking routes up through Mexico. I know more about it than I want to. And yet, despite all that, I will talk anyone's ear off about the absolute wonders of Baja, California to anyone who will listen because it really is a special place.

I guess border patrol and customs can be mean. They do save the most lives on the border while dealing with some truly evil people but sure, they can improve their approach to tourists and well-meaning citizens.

As for the rest, yes the situation complicated, although I'm not sure what the people of Baja and its tourism have to do with the state of California and its conditions. Were you using this to refute any of my previous comments or something else?

No, no I'm not trying to refute anything. You were just being very, very negative, and if you read any of my other comments I have a deep passion for the southern part of California extending down into Baja, California.

This state has massive problems that do come with its massive population and economy. But it is also a truly special place with a totally unique geography, a rich, diverse culture, a robust economy, and one of the best public university systems on the planet.

I hate it when people start on the 'California is falling apart' train, because it's not. The state has massive problems. Yes, I've walked alone south of Los Angeles street recently. I've seen the used needles scattered on the Gold Line tracks. But that is just one tiny part of what is a truly magical place. For all of that, there's Joshua Tree, and Grand Central Market, and Lake Sabrina, and the quiet postwar bungalows of San Diego, and the Sutro Tower poking out of the fog, and Coronado island, and the Griffith Park Observatory, and the Broad, and Big Bear Lake, and Kelso Dunes, and Telescope Peak, and the French Laundry, and Pappy and Harriet's.

California is falling apart in some places and booming in others. It's a big 'ol nuanced tapestry. That's how it goes when you have 40 million neighbors. But, I wandered around downtown Palm Springs this morning, and lemme tell ya San Jacinto has never looked more gorgeous. I was in Oklahoma two weeks ago, and man the first thing I did when my plane landed back in California was remind myself how fortunate I am to live here.

So if I understand your response to everyone in California in this thread: "Yes, but there are also bad things, and thus everything positive can be contemptuously dismissed."

You misunderstood then. The very first sentence in my first post: CA has gotten worse in every metric.

Of course positives exist, but they are few and decreasing. Unsurprisingly, nobody has yet to answer my repeated question to name 10 things that have gotten better over the last 10 years.

1. The Gold Line got extended out to Azusa.

2. Craft beer has continued to get better and better in San Diego.

3. The Black Mountain bouldering area has been more highly developed.

4. Shoshone got internet.

5. Grand Central Market got refurbished.

6. Angel's Flight is open again.

7. Modern Times got Black House on nitro (ok, so this belongs in 2, but it's just so good it deserves its own point.)

8. They re-did the 10 between Redlands and Cabazon.

9. The San Diego light rail got extended out to UCSD.

10. Pho came to 29 Palms (although the loss of Palm Kebab is deeply mourned).

11. Here's an extra one just for fun, Mira Mesa got an 85 Degrees. Hello sea salt coffee.

12. Oh, here's another one. They fixed the toll road between Rosarito and Ensenada where it got wiped out by a landslide, so it took like 40 minutes off the drive.

13. Wait, here's another one. They opened the CBX cross-border express in Otay, so you can fly cheap and direct from San Diego to Mexico City by just walking directly across the border into the Tijuana airport.

14. Oh, and the Sand to Snow National Monument got established.

15. California got three brand new medical schools as well.

16. Oh, and now you can fly in a P51 Mustang at the Palm Springs air museum (They have a C47 as well that is so cool. The sound of radial aircraft engines makes my knees weak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbc5OCU0s00 ...Just do it. Why haven't you done it yet? Hurry up and do it. My god...just listen to those engines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlpmHBgHBCg)

17. Marijuana also got recreationally legalized in the state.

18. Bodie remains the same, which in the grand scheme of things I consider a net positive.

19. The Broad opened in Downtown Los Angeles.

20. Oh gosh, I guess I'll round it out. The cops stopped hassling people over doing the Carrizo Canyon hike (to the largest wooden railroad trestle in the world) in Anza Borrego from Carrizo Gorge Road (the coolest route) along the railroad tracks. (If you do it, do yourself a favor and round the day off with a visit to the Arroyo Tapiado mud caves)

Cool California stuff from a Californian who spends their time doing cool California stuff instead of sitting around getting bummed out about statistics. Elon can have fun in Texas, no hard feelings.

This makes me want to check out Southern California more again once it's more feasible.

I'm up in Silicon Valley, and... would say some things have gotten better in 10 years. The craft beer explosion has definitely hit here, too, and even more so around Sacramento.

A terrific new tiki bar opened in Oakland (The Kon-Tiki) and multiple terrific new tiki bars opened in San Francisco (Pagan Idol, Last Rites, Zombie Village; Smuggler's Cove opened in 2009, so not technically within 10 years, but they're considered one of the best bars -- not just tiki bars -- in the world).

As much as San Franciscans like to dump on San Jose, I think downtown San Jose has actually gotten pretty cool in a lot of respects, and that's entirely in the last decade.

There's a fair number of other smaller towns scattered around the Bay Area which are seeing some silver linings of gentrification.

I could probably come up with a more detailed list, but despite some very real downsides, particularly economic -- real estate prices really are out of control (and there is no One Single Cause to point to, despite a lot of folks trying); homelessness has become a genuine epidemic -- it's still a great place to be, and it's hard for me to think of another place in America where I'd genuinely rather be. (This is distinct from "another place I'd still like.")

I guess every place is jam-packed with cool stuff if you're the kind of person who actively goes out and hunts for cool stuff. I could go on-and-on about So-Cal, but I guess the die-hard Nor-Cal folks could do the same. I know I've blown a fair number of weekends at Morro Bay, the Monterey Bay aquarium, and wandering around The Mission. Haven't gotten around to San Jose yet. Maybe after this whole thing blows over. My buddy keeps trying to get me to go up for the Cherry Blossom festival.

I hadn't heard that tiki bars were a thing! That's pretty cool. Talk about a blast from the past.

With regards to real estate prices, that is one thing where I can really, really understand people's complaints. Even down in So-Cal you can see desert cabins on the market for $300k. I figured a bubble would burst at some point, but it hasn't so far. Maybe with more WFH folks who don't really want to be here can go somewhere that they can get more bang for their buck in terms of property, and the die-hard California folks can catch a break on real estate prices.

Cheers though! Good to hear from someone who isn't so down on California. It really is a cool place, and it's easy to take it for granted until you've spent some time in the Midwest.

Assuming it makes it through the pandemic, one of the original huge "tiki palace" type restaurants from the 1950s, Bali Hai, is in San Diego. There are some older ones in LA, but Bali Hai is more of an experience. (And actually has good drinks and food, from what I remember, unlike its closest surviving relative in San Francisco, the Tonga Room.)

I expected real estate prices to start going down, well, any year now, and they're definitely a drag on things. I'm likely to have to leave California in a year or so for family obligations; moving back a few years after that will prove difficult, I suspect, unless I find one of those "merely" $300K desert cabins!

I was clearly being a bit snarky with my first response, but I'm going to be sincere now: you asked for people to list good things about California, and they can be summed up as "there are, despite the problems, still genuinely good things about the life one can have living in California." If none of those matter to you, so be it, but that doesn't make those things irrelevant, and mentioning them is not disingenuous.

And let's be real here: the policies that have driven California's economic woes date back to the 1970s (tax policy, rent control) or far, far longer (water and fire management), and many of those old policies were pushed into place because California has long been a place people genuinely want to be. If you think we're being obstinate in pushing back against you, it's perhaps because we think you're coming across like "California is NOTHING BUT A PIT OF STEAMING DESPAIR." No, sorry, it isn't. Even now, heading into 2021, it just isn't. The highs aren't going to balance out the lows for everybody, and yes, it would be disingenuous to pretend the lows aren't there -- but it's just as disingenuous to pretend the highs aren't, either.

I asked specifically for things that have gotten better.

The lack of people being able to answer yet type multiple paragraphs in response is extremely telling. If you can't even explain how quality-of-life has improved for yourself then what argument is there?

Yeah, if you don't spend your free time sitting in your apartment wringing your hands over statistics on a Silicon Valley startup incubator's message board, you are a terrible person who is totally disconnected from reality.

/s