California here I go
From Maggie's Farm, a link to a thoughtful treatment of what extreme success in one area does to the population mix of a hot town like San Francisco, since the area of hot success is suitable for a completely different demographic from what used to succeed there. Rents stay in the stratosphere, so obviously it's not that the town is literally emptying out. Still, the whole county sees the phenomenon of the California boat people. Some are emptying out just as others are pouring in. It's happening fast enough to be unusually disruptive.
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VDH talks about this all the time- California is layering- a very thin crust of the monied coastal "elites" on top and a vast sea of poor on the bottom. Sounds like this author only sees the top of the immigrant pile, gushing about all the talented tech workers at her job, as if they represented some mean of the influx.
And yes, mostly, we hate the influx of Californians into our formerly conservative states, not because of who they are, but because of what they do. I would be willing to place a bet, though, that the loudest and most angry anti-Californians are the special people in Portland and Seattle, defending their claim to being the hippest of the hip.
I see them all the time- the cute little Washington State shaped window stickers, with "Roots", or "I love WA" on them. I want to discombobulate those folks with a
sticker that says, WA + D = CA
My work takes me into contact with a wide range of people- I've been in homes worth tens of millions of dollars in Bel Air, and humble little houses in Van Nuys, and it's like two different universes. There is no question in my mind that the middle has been shrinking here in CA for some time, both because lower middle jobs have become lower class jobs with increased competition, and the upper middle is higher and harder to reach because of increased costs, particularly home prices and health insurance.
It's exactly where you don't want to be heading as a society.
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