[quote=Leorocky]The state Department of Finance projects that California will grow from about 39 million people now to more than 51 million by 2060. Though the state’s growth rate is relatively slow, the Public Policy Institute of California said in a brief in February that as the population expands, California will shoulder “increased demand in all areas of infrastructure and public services – including education, transportation, corrections, housing, water, health and welfare.”
But concern about growth runs counter to demographers’ greater worry: Not that California is growing too fast, but that its population is growing too slowly.
“It’s totally the wrong question,” said Dowell Myers, a University of Southern California demography professor. “Without immigrants, California would be dead as a doornail. We don’t have enough children right now as it is to replace the workforce and the tax base … when Californians retire.”
Myers attributes fear of population growth to a mindset formed in the 1980s, when population grew rapidly. He said “a lot of people’s attitudes about immigration … stem from that period” and are now “behind the times.”
Leorocky, more immigrants or no, everyone has to live somewhere. If living units are capped in a jurisdiction and its occupancy is near 100%, then the newcomer will have to shop for housing in the next city over. Take San Mateo (SM Co), for example. It has and is surrounded by thousands of high-paying jobs but the amount of its living units have been capped for more than 35 years. If a new employee of a nearby company cannot find housing in San Mateo due to “no vacancy,” they will have to shop for housing in the next town over. And on and on until they find suitable housing for themselves. San Mateo has PLENTY of vacant land but it was all dedicated to open space in the 1930’s through early ’60’s. This is the case in most CA jurisdictions, especially in the most desirable coastal areas to live and there is nothing anyone here (or any “forecasting think tank” or “bureaucrat”) can do about this. Gubment officials can “forecast” a future CA “population explosion” of 12M more people all they want but the reality will be quite different, IMO. From the article, the Governor is essentially saying it is up to cities and counties how they want to (upzone?) to accomodate increases in population. I doubt too many cities are going to attempt to upzone their residential areas wholesale simply because they can’t afford to hire and pay the extra city/county personnel that a big increase in population will need. I could see a city/county giving lip service to scattered low-rise live and work lofts over commercial buildings, just to say, “Look what we did. We’re promoting `density!'” But they’re not going to utilize their (now bare bones) personnel constantly preparing for and appearing in public hearings fighting private property owners and neighbors for years over proposed density projects. It’s not going to happen because the prospective “developers” will just get tired of throwing money away on “environmental testing and mitigation” and go somewhere else in search of building permits.
If CA companies can’t find enough employees in the state in the year 2060 (in spite of well over a hundred CA universities churning out graduates twice yearly as well as attempting to recruit from out of state), then some CA companies might move somewhere else. Do we care?
CA “retirees” will retire in place or elsewhere in the state. A small portion will leave the state to retire but this will even be a smaller portion of current homeowners. That doesn’t necessarily mean more houses will be on the market in established areas. If it costs a retiree next to nothing to hang onto the home they had while they were working, they will, and rent it out for monthly income. This is especially prevalent in the SF bay area, where retirees have the highest net worth in the state (in the aggregate). Meaning they don’t have to sell the old family homestead to buy their retirement home. The more rural areas many CA retirees have and will retire to are not attractive to a worker-bee trying to raise a family, due to lack of good jobs and isolation from major freeways. So those areas are off the table and do not add to the state’s population as their new inhabitants have simply traded residency in one county for another. There are ALWAYS rental vacancies available in CA’s small towns but often very few listings available for sale at any given time (depending on town).
Props 13, 58 and 193 has and will see to it that the state could eventually become home to mostly longtime resident-retirees and their children (who may or may not need a FT job to exist). This will be the “homeowner class” and new immigrants (if they’re still coming) will be the “renter” and “new homebuyer” classes.
That’s how I envision CA’s future and I don’t feel it is entirely bad.