Texas a better California than California

[muckefuck]

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_california.html

I find the analysis in the article particularly interesting because I see Chicago heading toward the same "big-spending, high-taxing, lousy-services" model as California. For the past year and a half, we've had the highest sales tax in the nation, yet they still can't fix the potholes or make the the trains run on time. At least Left Coast progressives can console themselves with the fact that the major beneficiaries are those on the dole and public sector employees (and, by extension, their unions, which should warm the heart of the pro-labour contingent). By contrast, here the money seems to end up in the pockets of private developers, which is not an outcome favoured by any principled political philosophy.

Comments

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

The Economist recently did a cover story on this, in slightly more balanced fashion.

To point out just two things: A lot of these statistics fail to take into account the different income level and cost of living in California. Measured as a percentage of income as opposed to absolute dollars, actually, California's tax burden actually falls somehwere near the middle of the states (though it used to be near the top). And the population statistic, noting net negative internal migration, fails to take note of the massive external immigration that (in most years) keeps California's numbers still growing at a pretty fair clip. This guy's got an axe to grind.

That's not to say our state isn't a fiscal basket case. It is. The unions and, in particular, public employee pensions will kill us if we don't kill them first. Our state income tax that relies so heavily on capital gains from stock option windfalls is a disaster, as is our property tax system frozen in place by Prop 13. But it's still California. Our property values, while declining at the moment, still reflect a more much more potent demand to be here than flat, hot, ugly and largely poor Texas. But I'm biased.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Our property values, while declining at the moment, still reflect a more much more potent demand to be here than flat, hot, ugly and largely poor Texas.

Only partly. They also reflect the lack of good building land (due to pronounced local relief) and much tighter restrictions on land use. How much cheaper would it be to live on the peninsula if you could knock down three-story houses to build apartment blocks as easily as you can in Chicago, much less in Dallas?

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

Land use restrictions are tighter, that's true. And I've been to Houston and let me tell you I'm kinda glad about that!

I'm actually quite involved in the local land use scene. Most cities on the Peninsula are almost completely built out. In my city, most of the unbuilt lots have huge problems with steep grade and unstable land that they really shouldn't be built on. It literally costs the city more in services to allow the building of new houses in these areas than it gets back in taxes under Prop 13, so no surprise what regulatory outlook cities like mine have about developing these areas.

California cities are now subject to a whole host of incentives/mandates to increase "affordable" (such a joke) housing, though the lack of affordable housing is never going to be solved by regulatory intervention. Mixed use housing in transit corridors is another big mandate.

What continues to amaze me is how many folks who are pro-business, small government conservatives on a national level have a much different attitude about government intervention when it comes to planning in their local city!
(And how many Democrats are all of a sudden small government conservatives when they get a real estate license. I feel a post coming on.)

[mlr.livejournal.com]

largely poor?

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

Ooops. Texas is not largely poor. I meant to say by most accounts there is more poverty in Texas than California.

[mlr.livejournal.com]

That is probably correct (I would not be one who could verify.)

It probably is largely cheaper to run a business in TX than in CA -- one of the reasons TX, despite many deficiencies, can sometimes compete with CA. If that business (publishing, the most elite of high tech, etc.) is dependent on a base of extraordinary talent and smarts, then it might be better off remaining in the Bay area or New York, because of course many of those people require more than Texas can offer (not to mention the drawbacks).

The poor man's dollar will buy more in TX than CA, and that goes for the rich man's dollar too. As long as that is the case, TX will continue to attract citizenry and business. For us that live here, that usually is a good thing.

I should point out that TX does have some things that perhaps could hold their own with the wonders of CA: the music scene in Austin, the museums in Fort Worth, the Big Bend country, etc.

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

I'm usually not someone who goes out of his way to bash other parts of the country. I'm just reacting a little on an emotional level against the article quoted here, which I thought was a bit unfair to my adopted home state. I've actually had some good times in Texas and can see that it has quite a few good attributes, as does most anywhere if you look for it.

[sliv-1.livejournal.com]

There are times when living in California feels like living through the "Bust Out" description from Goodfellas, with the Unions in the role of the mob. Living here has convinced me more than anything that public workers ought not to be allowed to unionize.