Leaving California is not necessarily right for everybody

Leaving California is not necessarily right for everybody

Thinking about leaving the Golden State? Well it depends on your plans and which neighborhoods you are moving to.

Leaving California for another state comes off as a domestic version of being an expat. I saw some of the videos where some of the San Francisco VC leaders hype up a place in Austin because it is green pastures to Soma, Mission Bay, Financial District, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Jose inside the tech world crowd.

These people are fed up with life in California and they blame Downtown Sacramento and Bay Area for all sorts of stuff from housing, political animosity, recessions and of course in those cases do a domestic version of offshoring and putting an address in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona to avoid paying California state taxes and claim they have better purchasing power.

These people just want their version of “Freedom” whatever that really means vary by politics, civil rights and economic situation. It's not all it's cracked up to be and you have to be a certain demo to understand them.

However, if one starts leaving California without putting much thought then it becomes self defeating and the problems one said they ran away from either stays there or gets worse than they realized.

In the past when one talks about leaving California it was about retiring in their state of birth and getting a better job offer in other parts of the United States. Today it is about hyping up investment opportunities because someone like Elon Musk said he invested in Texas for SpaceX and Tesla. The other is political, like when Florida Governor Ron Desantis rants about “Woke Corporations” even though companies that operate nationwide have to enforce California labor laws in all 50 states.

Well one needs to look at the realities first before moving there. If the influencer is hyping up tourist spots in trendy neighborhoods to the place you plan to move to then moving is not a good idea. One needs to go to areas where locals actually live like suburban and residential areas of the city proper. One needs to measure the cost of living, the culture of locals, and jobs in the area with certain qualifications to do so. Understand the economic conditions before moving. Things can look good from the facades but one needs to look at the core to see if it works out or not.

For example in my case I am a biotech person and I help out by paying off my parents mortgage and bills. Also I cannot just leave because all I'm doing is going into debt if I did that. I am not in a position to just leave California because some VC's in my area hyped up a place in another state all for investment reasons. In my case it's good to visit other places sometimes but in my case I have to make sure I fight for better life in my home state by voting in elections and fight for better working conditions and pay in my area through voting for better regulations in the jobs I intend to work in.

Note I will not leave mainly because certain industries like biotech are expanding in places like California specifically on the I-80 corridor from San Francisco to Sacramento section. Yes there’s Research Triangle, North Carolina, parts of New Jersey and Boston that have biotech corridors but I am fighting for the home team specifically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmJ70djbV3c&pp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In6Oi--QNXE&pp

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-planning-build-snailbrook-town-for-texas-staff-report-2023-3?op=1