Not OP, but in the major Californian metropolises housing has a way of sucking out all available resources. There are lots of people and not enough land, which means that people have a tendency to bid up the price of available housing up to the very maximum that they can afford to pay. As a result, wages are high, but it all goes to landlords or previous homeowners.
Worse, this applies down the income ladder, such that childcare workers, cashiers, waiters, etc. are also living at the edge of subsistence because of housing. As a result, the price of these services gets bid up as well. This affects everybody but tends to affect families more than singles, because they can't bunk with roommates and they require a lot more services that involve paying other people.
This isn't really California-specific: families in Eureka, Merced, and Bakersfield do just fine (except for it being boring and not having many opportunities). But most people associate "California" with either the Bay Area or LA, and both of those metros have lots of money flowing in, lots of people flowing in, and restrictive zoning that keeps housing scarce.
There's plenty of land in CA for infill development; the problem is it has one-story single family houses on it, and CA has banned development everywhere so nobody can replace them with something more sensible like a fourplex or a multi-story building.
If we could, things would get cheaper, and traffic might even get better (since commutes would improve.)
Worse, this applies down the income ladder, such that childcare workers, cashiers, waiters, etc. are also living at the edge of subsistence because of housing. As a result, the price of these services gets bid up as well. This affects everybody but tends to affect families more than singles, because they can't bunk with roommates and they require a lot more services that involve paying other people.
This isn't really California-specific: families in Eureka, Merced, and Bakersfield do just fine (except for it being boring and not having many opportunities). But most people associate "California" with either the Bay Area or LA, and both of those metros have lots of money flowing in, lots of people flowing in, and restrictive zoning that keeps housing scarce.