Is the "California Dream" basically about the search for "Perfection"? (San Francisco: sale, home)

[Senno]

Originally Posted by coachlee

I think Shanghai city may be the best place for those who want to leave from America.
welcome to China, friends.

LoL. Very funny...

If you would take up the matter of your people knocking off our products and intellectual property with your gub'ment we'd appreciate that. I can understand if you are reticent to do that...

The Mamas & The Papas: California Dreamin' - YouTube

[.highnlite]

Originally Posted by zenjenn

I'm pretty sure given the topic of this post, he's not talking about Blythe or Yreka. That's not the "California dream".

And the reality is, most people moving anywhere need need to move where there's stable employment. Anywhere my family could have made a living in California included "expensive and crowded", or living someplace moderately crowded and expensive and having a completely insane commute. Those are the choices most people are faced with in the state. Most people require/want a certain level of statistical area, and that level of area that also has what people think of when they think "California dream" (good year-round weather, accessible to beaches, access to culture and the arts, etc.) - it's crowded and expensive.

I rather doubt the California dream is jammed freeways. There is much to the California Dream, and the desert and mountains and rural areas are very much part of it. If that were not true then the deserts and mountains and rural areas close to Mordor would not be jammed with Angelenos and So Calians every weekend.

Anywhere my family could have made a living in California included "expensive and crowded", or living someplace moderately crowded and expensive and having a completely insane commute.

This statement defines your self imposed limitations, not the conditions of the state. Obviously many people live happy lives in the non crowded and non expensive parts of the state.

When you remember that almost half of the state, by law, has no one living in it, and that adjacent to the non lived in wild lands are dozens or hundreds of small towns where happy and contented people go about their daily lives, it should become obvious that living in Mordor, with jammed freeways, poor air quality, unable to pee of one's front porch due to neighbors, neighbors, is a choice.

[nmnita]

I have no idea what brought my dad to Ca but after a year in college, in Colo we moved to the L.A. area for a year or so and was a cook in a medium, upscale restaurant (whatever that was in the 20s) he returned to Colo, got his engineering degree, got married, had my sister and they all headed back to Ca. With the exception of 3 years in the Navy during WW2 he lived there the rest of his 93 years. I am the only one to have left Ca. Well our kids have now. I get asked the question from time to time, why did you leave or don't you wish you could go back? To those who have never lived in Ca it is a dreamland and for many who do live there it is still a dreamland, for others a nightmere.

[Senno]

Originally Posted by nmnita

I have no idea what brought my dad to Ca but after a year in college, in Colo we moved to the L.A. area for a year or so and was a cook in a medium, upscale restaurant (whatever that was in the 20s) he returned to Colo, got his engineering degree, got married, had my sister and they all headed back to Ca. With the exception of 3 years in the Navy during WW2 he lived there the rest of his 93 years. I am the only one to have left Ca. Well our kids have now. I get asked the question from time to time, why did you leave or don't you wish you could go back? To those who have never lived in Ca it is a dreamland and for many who do live there it is still a dreamland, for others a nightmere.

Sounds like anywhere, USA to me.

[mateo45]

Originally Posted by .highnlite

Normal people usually don't move. Settled successful people don't move. The dispossessed and the poor move. Why leave a successful farm in Pennsylvania to move across the country to try to be successful

Read Eric Hoffer's essay; The Role of the Undesirables

That's true, though inversely (and probably Hoffer's intent), the same could be said of the ''incurious'', ''timid'', ''inflexible'', ''complacent'', and ''intolerant'' people who seldom move either. Just ask the kinda folks who left Europe or wherever to form this country (and this very state).

BTW, I retired and moved for the weather, no other reason. Have lived a lot of places and found most amenities don't mean squat if you're fighting the climate much of the time. So yes, you might say I've been looking for the "perfect" climate. The rest here was just a bonus.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by mateo45

That's true, though inversely (and probably Hoffer's intent), the same could be said of the ''incurious'', ''timid'', ''inflexible'', ''complacent'', and ''intolerant'' people who seldom move either. Just ask the kinda folks who left Europe or wherever to form this country (and this very state).

Yeah like the English who forced my Irish great great grandparents to move to Colusa County rather than starve to death.

[nullgeo]

Originally Posted by zenjenn

I'm pretty sure given the topic of this post, he's not talking about Blythe or Yreka. That's not the "California dream".

And the reality is, most people moving anywhere need need to move where there's stable employment. Anywhere my family could have made a living in California included "expensive and crowded", or living someplace moderately crowded and expensive and having a completely insane commute. Those are the choices most people are faced with in the state. Most people require/want a certain level of statistical area, and that level of area that also has what people think of when they think "California dream" (good year-round weather, accessible to beaches, access to culture and the arts, etc.) - it's crowded and expensive.

No offense, but your response here -- full of true observations about what most people are looking for -- demonstrates the remarkable lack of imagination and creativity that the vast majority of our culture labor to live with. A perfect example of why so many are so unhappy with the coastal California rat-race competition.

Just read through a NY Times article this morning that relates ... a good read though not anything revelatory or sensational ... still, it reinforces what we all know and choose to ignore in our quest for titillation and distraction. A nugget from the article:

In a study published last year titled “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century,” researchers at U.C.L.A. observed 32 middle-class Los Angeles families and found that all of the mothers’ stress hormones spiked during the time they spent dealing with their belongings. Seventy-five percent of the families involved in the study couldn’t park their cars in their garages because they were too jammed with things.
Our fondness for stuff affects almost every aspect of our lives. Housing size, for example, has ballooned in the last 60 years. The average size of a new American home in 1950 was 983 square feet; by 2011, the average new home was 2,480 square feet. And those figures don’t provide a full picture. In 1950, an average of 3.37 people lived in each American home; in 2011, that number had shrunk to 2.6 people. This means that we take up more than three times the amount of space per capita than we did 60 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/op...nted=all&_r=1&

Meanwhile, I can live in a premier downtown San Francisco neighborhood, with full personal space and amenities and gated security, legally, for as little as about $600 a month with one-car parking. I know of several ways to live in and around the Bay area for as little as $0 dollars to about $1,000 a month to include a range of effort and security and parking along with my space.

Yes, all legal. No, I won't reveal how. That's part of the game / point. Be creative. Stop trying to live the McMansion lifestyle. (Btw: for those who think I am bulls***ing -- there are a few posters on this forum who can confirm my claim, having met me and been given the explanations.)

But most important to note is that California has millions of very satisfied residents living lives they find fulfilling and wouldn't trade for any other -- outside of the confines of what is described as the "dream" in the first quote above.

[Fontucky]

"Seventy-five percent of the families involved in the study couldn’t park their cars in their garages because they were too jammed with things. "

I can park two in mine. I have a dumpster and I know how to use it. Plus I'm very thrifty. Some would say "cheap."

[Senno]

I'd be willing to bet that every one of these kids has spent their life dreaming of their perfect swim in the Olympics. That might not have been a gold medal performance for them, but they did their best, and that's good enough. And it's not limited to CA kids either...

And they had fun making this little video. Which I like to post sometimes...


Call Me Maybe - 2012 USA Olympic Swimming Team - YouTube

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Fontucky

"Seventy-five percent of the families involved in the study couldn’t park their cars in their garages because they were too jammed with things. "

I can park two in mine. I have a dumpster and I know how to use it. Plus I'm very thrifty. Some would say "cheap."

Now that I can believe! But like you, I could also park two cars in my garage if, of course, I felt the need to own two cars, which I don't.

The "California Dream" is all well and good for those who find theirs there. For some of those who lived it, it's not always all it's cracked-up to be and despite what I would hope is a minority, hubris-filled opinion, not everyone who leaves the state is a loser. Some of us simply aspire to something different. Amazing, isn't it, that different people might have different thoughts, wants and desires? Who knew?