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Old 10-27-2018, 03:15 PM
 
3,889 posts, read 4,543,431 times
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I often see threads in various states with people complaining about their towns becoming "too crowded".

Just read how someone moved from Bend Oregon because of crowds and housing priced and moved to Boise and now complaining the same thing is happening there.

I hear the nature trails in Bend and areas up in Washington near Seattle are downright crowded on the weekends. Does not sound like the close to nature experience people were expecting.

Many Chinese (the country has what over a billion people?) came over and bought up property on the West coast in California with cash, (also many other places including Vancouver Canada) driving Californians to places like Bend, then the Californians drive people on to Boise, etc. etc.

So what do you think? Are we just going through a population boom in general? Is "this place is getting too crowded" a common thing now?
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Old 10-27-2018, 05:44 PM
 
Location: SoCal
3,877 posts, read 3,897,668 times
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I wouldn't say a population boom, just a constant growth of population just a restructuring of where people have lived. The west is still the newest frontier, and has always been sparsely populated so people from the East, and midwest that made their way in droves throughout the 20th century to California now have had kids who are making their way to other places in the west. JUst populating places that historically have not had that many people.

People love to complain for one as there are many many many places that don't have that many people so they have tons of options looks at Alaska twice the size of Texas with less than one million people there's plenty of places to move.

California is the largest state by far so of course it would have the largest amount of people moving to other states, and many from CA are less afraid to move to remote places in the west as they are very similar to how California was just a few decades ago. It's nice to see Californians moving to spread our way of life to these others states it's only a matter a time before the entire west is New California, and there's nothing the natives can do about it. LMAO they don't have the numbers to put up a fight.
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Old 10-27-2018, 07:25 PM
 
Location: Taos NM
5,362 posts, read 5,136,516 times
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Outside of nice ocean front property or California's Mediterranean climate, there is absolutely no shortage of nice available land in the US. There is so much undeveloped space in the US, even excluding the places where you wouldn't really want to live in the western half. If sit on Google Earth for a while, it's kind of surprising how small the slivers of urban development are across the entire globe really. I think people from the East Coast and West Coast in particular really don't realize this.

The problem isn't necessarily space, it's development and people not choosing to live in smaller cities. A city feels crowded if infrastructure is under built, and it takes a lot of infrastructure to really support industry and a good economy, tourism, and housing. Likewise if you have 7,000,000 people in your metro, there's just always going to be people around, everywhere.

It's interesting, the difference between home prices in the mountains of Colorado isn't based on how pretty the mountain valley is; it's much more based on is there an interstate / airport nearby. There's plenty more pretty mountain valleys that could be filled up with homes if there was a way for people to quickly get to and from there.
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Old 10-27-2018, 07:29 PM
 
Location: Floribama
18,949 posts, read 43,621,102 times
Reputation: 18760
Quote:
Originally Posted by sean1the1 View Post
I wouldn't say a population boom, just a constant growth of population just a restructuring of where people have lived. The west is still the newest frontier, and has always been sparsely populated so people from the East, and midwest that made their way in droves throughout the 20th century to California now have had kids who are making their way to other places in the west. JUst populating places that historically have not had that many people.

People love to complain for one as there are many many many places that don't have that many people so they have tons of options looks at Alaska twice the size of Texas with less than one million people there's plenty of places to move.

California is the largest state by far so of course it would have the largest amount of people moving to other states, and many from CA are less afraid to move to remote places in the west as they are very similar to how California was just a few decades ago. It's nice to see Californians moving to spread our way of life to these others states it's only a matter a time before the entire west is New California, and there's nothing the natives can do about it. LMAO they don't have the numbers to put up a fight.
Weird.
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Old 10-27-2018, 07:45 PM
 
Location: Forest bathing
3,205 posts, read 2,486,856 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sean1the1 View Post
I wouldn't say a population boom, just a constant growth of population just a restructuring of where people have lived. The west is still the newest frontier, and has always been sparsely populated so people from the East, and midwest that made their way in droves throughout the 20th century to California now have had kids who are making their way to other places in the west. JUst populating places that historically have not had that many people.

People love to complain for one as there are many many many places that don't have that many people so they have tons of options looks at Alaska twice the size of Texas with less than one million people there's plenty of places to move.

California is the largest state by far so of course it would have the largest amount of people moving to other states, and many from CA are less afraid to move to remote places in the west as they are very similar to how California was just a few decades ago. It's nice to see Californians moving to spread our way of life to these others states it's only a matter a time before the entire west is New California, and there's nothing the natives can do about it. LMAO they don't have the numbers to put up a fight.
Not everyone is in love with “the California way of life”. Liberalism gone amok, over-consumption, that’s the way we did it in California, tear down perfectly decent homes to build an architectural nightmare to block your neighbors’ views, why don’t you have xyz store, etc. We just returned from a long camping trip to rural Nevada. We spoke with quite a few disgruntled locals who do not like the changes that former Californians brought to their towns.
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Old 10-27-2018, 08:59 PM
 
3,889 posts, read 4,543,431 times
Reputation: 5190
Quote:
Originally Posted by sean1the1 View Post

California is the largest state by far so of course it would have the largest amount of people moving to other states, and many from CA are less afraid to move to remote places in the west as they are very similar to how California was just a few decades ago. It's nice to see Californians moving to spread our way of life to these others states it's only a matter a time before the entire west is New California, and there's nothing the natives can do about it. LMAO they don't have the numbers to put up a fight.
Lol! I do believe this is the first time I've seen this sentiment actually stated!!
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Old 10-27-2018, 09:06 PM
 
3,889 posts, read 4,543,431 times
Reputation: 5190
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil P View Post
Outside of nice ocean front property or California's Mediterranean climate, there is absolutely no shortage of nice available land in the US. There is so much undeveloped space in the US, even excluding the places where you wouldn't really want to live in the western half. If sit on Google Earth for a while, it's kind of surprising how small the slivers of urban development are across the entire globe really. I think people from the East Coast and West Coast in particular really don't realize this.

The problem isn't necessarily space, it's development and people not choosing to live in smaller cities. A city feels crowded if infrastructure is under built, and it takes a lot of infrastructure to really support industry and a good economy, tourism, and housing. Likewise if you have 7,000,000 people in your metro, there's just always going to be people around, everywhere.

It's interesting, the difference between home prices in the mountains of Colorado isn't based on how pretty the mountain valley is; it's much more based on is there an interstate / airport nearby. There's plenty more pretty mountain valleys that could be filled up with homes if there was a way for people to quickly get to and from there.
Good point!
Even in Redding California... probably one of the least "hip" places I know is feeling the effects of this. Last time we visited my brother who lives right outside of town, we were in a traffic jam through the small downtown area and he kept saying, "where are all these people coming from??"
The town may have a few more people, but it's always known to be rather stagnant. It has it's problems but it's also has potential if only they'd get some creativity going there. However, their infrastructure would easily be overwhelmed unless there was a drastic overhaul.
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Old 10-27-2018, 09:41 PM
 
27,218 posts, read 43,942,133 times
Reputation: 32302
Quote:
Originally Posted by xPlorer48 View Post
Not everyone is in love with “the California way of life”. Liberalism gone amok, over-consumption, that’s the way we did it in California, tear down perfectly decent homes to build an architectural nightmare to block your neighbors’ views, why don’t you have xyz store, etc. We just returned from a long camping trip to rural Nevada. We spoke with quite a few disgruntled locals who do not like the changes that former Californians brought to their towns.
A typically Republican rant about California. Seriously, is that from a chapter in your guidebook or what? Over-consumption and over-building have neither a restriction to political affiliation or geography, and in the end are simply common American attributes.
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Old 10-27-2018, 09:56 PM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
481 posts, read 423,171 times
Reputation: 891
I find a subtle irony in when people brag of their area, only to have that area welcome scores of transplants and change everything.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Podo944 View Post
I often see threads in various states with people complaining about their towns becoming "too crowded".

Just read how someone moved from Bend Oregon because of crowds and housing priced and moved to Boise and now complaining the same thing is happening there.

I hear the nature trails in Bend and areas up in Washington near Seattle are downright crowded on the weekends. Does not sound like the close to nature experience people were expecting.

Many Chinese (the country has what over a billion people?) came over and bought up property on the West coast in California with cash, (also many other places including Vancouver Canada) driving Californians to places like Bend, then the Californians drive people on to Boise, etc. etc.

So what do you think? Are we just going through a population boom in general? Is "this place is getting too crowded" a common thing now?
I've heard this of many places too, especially the west coast. The Pacific Northwest's beauty is no longer a secret (was it ever?), and people are looking to it in their escape of California.

There is a large influx of Chinese into Canada, but most of their real estate purchases on the US West Coast (among other popular real estate markets) are really just an offshore investment in case of Chinese economic hardships. The Chinese government itself is cracking down hard on this, as they do not want cash to be flowing to other countries. As such, I think outside a few notable examples (Vancouver), most of the price spiking in places like Bend is from other Americans moving in. I'd also like to add that Americans themselves are often the cause of high prices, namely the slow construction response to meet demand, and I've heard that in certain cities like San Francisco, the rich hold immense sway and can block new buildings if it ruffles their feathers.

America is not in a population boom. America just has many people moving to particular places, construction companies have taken a while to respond to demand for housing due to various issues, and everyone is just more aware of people's discontent because of the internet. You speak of Oregon as if this is a new problem.... in the 60s and 70s, Oregon actively campaigned for people to not move to their state, this is not some new phenomena.

Also, rents have actually stagnated in many places this year, due to construction finally catching up in many places.

EDIT: I found the exact historical fact I referred to: Tom McCall, a former Oregon governor, popularized the notion of "don't move here" in 1971. So no, this is not a new thing.
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Old 10-27-2018, 10:38 PM
 
Location: Forest bathing
3,205 posts, read 2,486,856 times
Reputation: 7268
Quote:
Originally Posted by kyle19125 View Post
A typically Republican rant about California. Seriously, is that from a chapter in your guidebook or what? Over-consumption and over-building have neither a restriction to political affiliation or geography, and in the end are simply common American attributes.
I am not a Republican; I vote as an Independent choosing the person, not the party so quit stereotyping yourself. But, yeah, I see the overbuilding in my community and the cars have California plates more often than not.
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