I left LA for numerous reasons, absolutely unaffordable housing was one of them. Most people are doing extremely poorly in Los Angeles.
It's the only city where you both have to pay an insane amount of rent, and own a car. The bare minimum survive in LA is probably around 80 k. But the median income there is only around 70k.
Of the people I was meeting, almost no one had a job or any real interest in working. Very bad things tend to happen if you're around people like that.
I moved to Chicago after being disenchanted with LA, and I met an amazing partner with a great career . I only meet people in real life after a particularly scary app experience. Like I said, bad things happen if you're around people who don't work. Not that you need to make too much in Chicago to live.
A two bedroom in Chicago will run you from 1300 to 1600. You don't need a car since it has one of the best public transit systems in America, and a monthly Metro passes about a hundred bucks.
So let's say you want to split a two-bedroom with a friend, for your transportation and housing. Housing you're only spending about $1,000 a month.
Compared to LA where that same two bedroom cost $2,600, and you need to own a car. Most people just run out and finance something. So once you make your payments and your insurance, and your maintenance and your gas, you're easily spending between $700 to $900 on transportation alone.
Base cost of living in Chicago, 1k + a few hundred for food , utilities and fun. In LA your taking 2100$ + that same few hundred.
Plus I got a pretty significant raise when I moved to Chicago! No rational person should stay in Los Angeles !
'But my family's here.'
Most of my family ended up leaving because they just can't afford to it anymore. Why be the last person off of a sinking ship.
The time to fix California's affordable housing crisis was decades ago before Prop 13 was passed. Too late now
LA isn't even better than most other cities. You'd think it would be considering how many people have come here and how much it costs, but it's possibly one of the most mediocre cities in existence. Countries with much smaller economies (yet longer histories) than LA manage to have better looking skyscrapers and scenery, along with roads that aren't crumbling to the same degree. There's some great things in LA, but there's great things elsewhere and people are happy in other parts of the world. Somehow there are still some "angelinos" getting high on their own supply over "la la land". Literally no one comes to visit anymore unless LA happens to be on the way to something.
It's sad because this used to be the place to be (one of them, I mean). At least that's what we wanted to believe.
I'm still in LA because I happen to be paying a ridiculously low monthly rent for a 4 bedroom house in an area where I have friends and family (yeah... I know). As soon as that rent shoots up, LA will have to be in my rear view mirror. Probably California all together.
Some are probably gonna downvote me, but guess what, I got highly downvoted back in ~2015 when I was pointing out the decline of San Francisco; now it's issues are commonly accepted. You can't explain away the need for poop patrols, the garbage overflowing in the streets, or the fentanyl zombies. Eventually people won't be able to deny that LA is suffering serious socio-economic issues, just as how few will apologize for SF anymore.
Believe it or not, I want these places to succeed. That's why I openly criticize them. Cities in California are my home.
I live in Denver, and the situation is much the same. Rampant crime, rapidly ballooning prices, and a public transit system so awful (in city limits; commuter rail is OK if you need to get between the suburbs and the city center) that you need a car.
What's especially weird is that this city is so flat, the weather is so decent, and the distances are so small, you could easily make Denver a paradise for walking and biking. But instead we just keep doubling down on cars for getting around the city, street parking, and unsustainable car suburbs.
Coastal California will never have affordable housing. The demand is way too high relative to supply, so people will trip over themselves to compete with each other for it, pushing prices to the limit.
There may have been a possibility prior to the 90s before it was widely known about and the world’s population was much smaller, but it has been a few decades since it has been obvious that demand for coastal California is insatiable, and obviously the people living there are not going to want to share it with everyone in the world that wants to live there.
> Of the people I was meeting, almost no one had a job or any real interest in working. Very bad things tend to happen if you're around people like that.
I left LA for numerous reasons, absolutely unaffordable housing was one of them. Most people are doing extremely poorly in Los Angeles.
It's the only city where you both have to pay an insane amount of rent, and own a car. The bare minimum survive in LA is probably around 80 k. But the median income there is only around 70k.
Of the people I was meeting, almost no one had a job or any real interest in working. Very bad things tend to happen if you're around people like that.
I moved to Chicago after being disenchanted with LA, and I met an amazing partner with a great career . I only meet people in real life after a particularly scary app experience. Like I said, bad things happen if you're around people who don't work. Not that you need to make too much in Chicago to live.
A two bedroom in Chicago will run you from 1300 to 1600. You don't need a car since it has one of the best public transit systems in America, and a monthly Metro passes about a hundred bucks.
So let's say you want to split a two-bedroom with a friend, for your transportation and housing. Housing you're only spending about $1,000 a month.
Compared to LA where that same two bedroom cost $2,600, and you need to own a car. Most people just run out and finance something. So once you make your payments and your insurance, and your maintenance and your gas, you're easily spending between $700 to $900 on transportation alone.
Base cost of living in Chicago, 1k + a few hundred for food , utilities and fun. In LA your taking 2100$ + that same few hundred.
Plus I got a pretty significant raise when I moved to Chicago! No rational person should stay in Los Angeles !
'But my family's here.' Most of my family ended up leaving because they just can't afford to it anymore. Why be the last person off of a sinking ship.
The time to fix California's affordable housing crisis was decades ago before Prop 13 was passed. Too late now