Almost four years ago we did a video listing why people were leaving california. This was in early
2019 before the census came out and we realized how bad it had gotten and it's gotten worse since
then today we're going to list the reasons why california for the first time in its history is
actually losing population a lot of people think california's had a declining population for a
decade or so it's not true from 2010 to 2020 the rate of people leaving california was the
highest it's ever been in the state's history the thing was they still had more people moving into
the state than leaving since california's been included in the u.s census in 1850 they've gained
double-digit population every single census but two in the 1860 census they actually had triple
digit growth with a boom of 310 percent then in 2020 they only had single digit growth california
population grew by six percent most decades they grew by at least 50 percent so six percent's
pretty low now in the 20 months since the 2020 census came out it's estimated that california's
population declined by one percent it is predicted that by 2030 they will lose 12 percent of the
state's population if a lot of things don't change companies like chevron pabst brewery oracle toyota
tesla to name a few have put california in the rearview mirror along with many well-known
celebrities like joe rogan graham stefans blake lively and ryan reynolds julia roberts and many
others today we're going to look at 10 things that need to change in california according to people
that have left or are planning to leave the golden state got it get it good let's take a look number
10 crime crime is always a big concern with anyone but the thing is california does have crime it's
just not as bad as i think a lot of people think there are pockets which are horrible but overall
california's crime rate's not that bad this is a big one for any state that has major cities most
people just assume because of the big cities they have high crime rates and the rest of the state
does too california is ranked 22nd when you rank the states by their crime rate when you factor in
unreported crime estimates they would only move up one spot to 21st now i bring that up because
they have a large foreign population a lot of immigrants foreigners undocumented whatever you
want to say those demographics have a history of not reporting crimes for a lot of different
reasons they don't trust the police they're afraid of being deported things like that now
i bring that up because someone always has to put that in the comment section whenever we bring up a
crime rate isn't as bad as it's you know people think it is they always want to bring that up i
researched that one and that's what it breaks down to but yeah a lot of people say that the
crime rate needs to come down in california or they're leaving or that's why they left
the crime rate is bad in california but there are far worse in the nation number nine opportunity
people don't think they have the opportunity to get ahead anymore they feel that there's so
many factors working against them that they will never be able to do anything but tread water and
probably never retire if they stay in california a lot of retirees heading to nevada arizona and
utah that's why they're leaving they can't afford to retire in california that's because
the cost of living sure they have some desert communities where the cost of living isn't crazy
but most of california has an extremely high cost living is it the highest no hawaii is the highest
followed by new york and if you want to count the district of columbia as a state type thing
then they're in there also ahead of california the cost of living index in california is 139.7 so the
simplest way to look at it and it's kind of dumbed down so if you're mathematician i'm sorry if you
really don't feel like hearing a bunch of numbers i'm giving it to you this way in california going
to the grocery store it's like you pay 140 but you go buy the same stuff in idaho and it costs you a
hundred dollars and the cost of living shows no signs of going down i mean we're in an economic
downturn right now whatever you want to call it and prices are still going up in california
faster than almost any other state number eight the social issues now i use the word social issues
has a nice way of saying it's got a really bad homeless problem it is estimated that there's
almost 162 000 california residents that would be considered homeless whether they're living
on the street they're in a shelter they're living in their car whatever they're considered homeless
that's almost as many as the next four states combined new york with 91 000 florida 27 000
texas with 27 000 and washington state with 22 000. you want to see how bad it is in california
nick johnson did some really good videos on the homeless situation he went all up down the coast
he went to skid row la he went to the tenderloin in san francisco and then he went up to portland
then he went up to washington watch those videos and you can see how bad it's gotten he went at
what i believe was the peak of the homeless crisis that the cove had played a part in putting a lot
of extra people out there it's gotten a little bit better but it's still way worse than it should
be and it is driving people out of the state especially in san francisco oakland san jose
and los angeles number seven the drought and all that comes with it there's droughts every single
year or at least what they call a dry year there's actually a lot of factors that go into declaring
a drought but in 2011 to 2017 california had a drought that was the longest drought they've
ever had matter of fact 2011 to 2014 were the driest years in california's history every once
in a while an el nino year will come through and they'll have a whole bunch of water which comes
with a lot of mudslides and things like that but most years california is in some form of drought
status most of the state is a desert and people don't seem to understand that you go out by
bakersfield and they're growing everything they can grow out there if you were to take the farms
and the buildings and all civilization out of the bakersfield area it would be a great place to
film a movie where a cowboy dies a thirst next to one of those dried out cattle skulls now besides
the fact that it's a desert southern california gets most of their water from the colorado river
and as populations grow all along the colorado river that means less and less water is getting
to each state i mean even in nevada lake mead is drying up and that's part of the colorado river
system with the drought also comes wildfires every single year california has hundreds of
wildfires that just destroy millions of acres people lose homes and the state has to spend
a ton of money on resources to battle these wildfires the fires are getting more frequent
they're getting larger and they're getting more destructive and a lot of people leaving
california expressed frustration over the fact that the fires aren't likely to get less dangerous
any time soon there are hundreds of people that have lost their house multiple times in california
you know my house burns the ground i just leave that's it you know i'll take my insurance money
and try someplace else now the wildfires aren't just burning houses the smoke and the air quality
just drops for months at a time couple years back i took the train down to california the sky was
orange the entire time i was there and not that typical smog brown you get in california and los
angeles and stuff it was just an orange haze night and day now california does all kinds of different
things to try and fix the problem and the first thing they always go to is getting the residents
to cut back on their water use you know let your lawns go brown no more swimming pools things like
that are always in play and they always tell you to conserve water there's all kinds of rules about
low-flow toilets and shower heads and that's only going to go so far in recent years they've talked
about other things they're thinking about doing and a lot of them are costly water desalinization
recycling waste water which they're already doing kind of but they want to expand that which is
going to cost money increase groundwater storage again it's going to cost a lot of money increase
surface storage again more money eliminate swimming pools that sucks eliminate golf courses
and other facilities which use a tremendous amount of water elimination of high water use crops such
as almond groves and wine vineyards get rid of wine vineyards in california are you effing crazy
my personal opinion not knowing the ins and outs of it but water desalinization seems to be
the way to go even though it is very expensive you know they've been doing it in the middle
east for decades why can't california number six a breakdown in society this is a strange one
because some of it could have been included in the crime entry on this list and it's also just not in
california but california seems to be at epidemic level with a lot of these things but californians
leaving say people have taken a turn for the worse in the golden state people throw fits and scream
in public at like starbucks road rage is at its highest rate ever in california the punishment
for crimes they say is worth the attempt that's why you see on the news groups of people just
running into stores taking whatever they want with a mask on and then running out whole group of them
people go into your driveway in the middle of the night and steal your catalytic converter and
sometimes they do it in the middle of the day you got follow home robberies smash and grabs in broad
daylight while people are filming these idiots just smash your window take your laptop and leave
they don't care you got street takeovers where all these people in cars just kind of block off
an intersection start doing donuts and a whole crowd is with them and the cops really can't
do anything about it the list goes on and one of the biggest problems is and this is a policy issue
in california and washington and oregon which i see the reason for the policy changes but i think
it's gone too far but people don't care about the consequences anymore and they know if they
get caught doing any of these things they're not really going to prison for you to do any amount
of serious time in california for a crime there's got to be a body pinned on you someone had to die
there's just not enough consequences for your actions in california public decency has become
a thing of the past there's a lot more that goes into that but you get what i'm talking about
number five the housing crisis yeah you knew this one was coming housing in california is ridiculous
i've done several videos on how expensive it is to own a house in california i saw a guy talking
about this on youtube and i kind of looked it up and i really couldn't get a you know
accurate number but the guy said in the 1950s almost 80 percent of the population of the united
states could afford to buy a home then he went on to say now in the united states it's about 65
in california he said it's closer to 30 percent now i've no hard data on that one
but i feel that's pretty accurate the median cost of a house in california is about hundred thousand
right now six hundred and twenty two thousand that's currently and it could change next month so
don't be quoting me it's actually six thirty five right now what are you talking about briggs i get
that all the time the average rent in california right now is about three thousand dollars
it's about seventeen 1700 more than the national average now there's a lot of different reasons
for this and there's a lot of different theories one that i've always seen as a problem is ninby
not in my backyard since forever california has done this thing where they don't want any
big developments in neighborhoods or anything like that they fight tooth and nail to stop
big developments from happening so you have a housing crisis and they do it in all kinds of
things to preserve the character of the neighborhood to protect the environment
save the el segundo butterfly yeah that's a real thing they stopped a bunch of housing
going in by lax los angeles international airport because of a freaking butterfly at least that's
what they said it was for there's a hillside at the end of lax between the ocean and los angeles
international airport that is probably about a quarter a mile wide and about two miles long
and they had plans putting houses there now this originally was a housing area it was developed
in 1921 it was called surfridge california it was actually like a little town and it was one of the
many coastal developments that was built on this wide swath of sand dunes as the coastline became
more urbanized with you know houses and actually oil fields and things like that surfridge became
like this hot spot for hollywood's leap this is before malibu became a thing then in the
1930s they built a small airstrip which would eventually become lax people started moving
out because the noise of the planes coming over their nice little beach cottages by the 1960s not
as many people were living there and it wasn't like this little place for the rich people anymore
so lax claimed it an eminent domain now they talked about expanding the airport onto that area
and then eventually they ran into problems it was a blue butterfly yes the el segundo blue butterfly
and the environmental movement that was backing this thing stopped the airport from expanding
and then eventually when they tried to put houses there the butterfly stopped the houses from being
put back in surfridge so now this prime piece of real estate is just vacant lots now that's
a long story but that kind of explains the mentality of california and especially the los
angeles area that's how a lot of things go down that's not just some one-off bizarre story it's
kind of a common scenario in california real estate besides all that you just have incredible
amount of zoning laws now don't get me wrong housing complexes and big apartment buildings and
different communities are built all the time but not nearly as often as they need them number four
the remote worker that's right one of the other reasons california is slowly becoming a ghost town
isn't a negative it's remote work people are deciding like i've been saying on this channel
for a long time that if you could work from home and you don't need to be in california los angeles
san francisco for your job why not move someplace affordable where you could actually get ahead and
not just survive there was a study in 2020 by the e-commerce site fast that found that
of those californians who were able to work from anywhere 43 are thinking about leaving california
number three it's dirty if you go to certain areas like skid row or the tenderloin in san francisco
it's extremely dirty well it's not just exclusive to those areas where the homeless hang out a lot
of california is dirty it's better than it used to be let's say the 70s and 80s but compared to
a lot of other states it's a pretty nasty state on top of it everyone's heard all the stories
about you know the homeless people dropping deuces in the street well that happens anywhere
you have homeless i mean that's just how it is they've gotta go they don't have a three-bedroom
two-bath place to do it in it's gonna happen on the streets the streets of san francisco
dallas miami fort worth seattle portland it's gonna happen and it is happening thinking that
that's only going on in san francisco is naive here's the rub california has far more homeless
than any other state so you're gonna get a lot more of that the good news if you're looking down
at the ground uh hopefully not stepping anything you're not looking up and seeing how brown the
sky is the air quality in california is horrendous as well number two bad for business if the amount
of large corporations leaving california and the amount of small businesses shutting down
in california didn't tip you off california is a bad state for business two primary drawbacks of
doing business in california is the extreme cost in extreme regulation they red tape you to death
in california everyone needs their fees and everyone needs their paperwork filled out back in
the early 90s we had a mayor named mayor richard reardon he was a businessman before he became
the mayor of los angeles i remember him talking about cutting some of the red tape out of los
angeles and he said when he had his business which i still think he had at the time he wanted to have
two palm trees put out in front of the place he said he had to go through 11 different offices and
it took over two years to get two freaking palm trees planted in front of his business on his own
property by the way california consistently shows up on lists and studies as one of the worst places
to do business one i was looking at today they had their corporate tax rate they were ranked 46th
in the nation and bureaucracy they were ranked 48th it's just a very unfriendly business state
all right before we get to number one don't forget we have another channel called on this
day there's a link down below we'd love it if you went over and subscribe all right on to number one
and number one the rising taxes if they can figure out a way to tax you for something in california
they will they have all the taxes the state will give an example oregon has a high property tax
and a high state income tax but they don't have a sales tax washington has all the normal taxes but
they don't have a state income tax california's got all of them including a pretty high gas tax
according to turbo tax the top income tax states or legal jurisdictions they say in 2020 were
california with 13.3 percent hawaii with 11 percent new jersey with 10.75 oregon with 9.9
percent and minnesota with 9.85 percent they're over 2 percent higher than number 2 on the list
so your everyday things cost you more in california your home costs you more in california
your utilities cost you more in california and your taxes cost you more in california with the
issues california faces right now with the drought the homeless situation and all that i'm sure taxes
are going to be going up after all you can't fix problems and infrastructure with happy thoughts
and well wishes all right that's today's video you really enjoyed it and you're smarter because of it
let me know in the comment section below which one of the things on this list would have chased you
out of california if you were living here alright everyone have a great day be nice to each other