California already has those social services; that doesn’t stop antisocial people from doing antisocial things. A tiny fraction of people can cause a lot of damage.
There is a part of California that still has ancient telegraph lines complete with weathered copper with the blueish colour. Nobody has come by to scrap it yet. So it’s really a matter of proximity to wherever antisocial people choose to live.
Copper price more than proximity. People don't strip wires for shits and giggles, they do it to sell the metal.
Bet you if copper price suddenly went up 10x, those ancient telegraph lines would disappear very quickly, one way or another (turns out, "criminals" and "junkies" and "entrepreneurs" are driven by similar incentives, they just sit at different points of the cost/risk tradeoff spectrum).
California is teeming with homelessness, whatever they call "cheap housing" isn't helping. They have the highest poverty rate in the nation (or close to it https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-has-highest-poverty-rat...). Nearly half of California's population can't afford even the basic costs of living and millions struggle to afford food (https://www.kcra.com/article/new-hunger-research-shows-milli...) so while the state has done well in some areas (health care coverage for example) you can be sure that there are plenty of very desperate people who might end up resorting to crime in order to meet their basic needs.
I’m assuming you’re referring to the article you linked.
40% is not “near half” - it’s closer to 33% than it is 50% and I think we would both (rightfully) object to me saying “near 1/3rd.” 50% and 40% are very different numbers.
Also, that 40% figure is based on their own definition, not something that is broadly accepted.
We do, but they tend to be clustered around urban areas. There’s vast swaths of CA that lean much more conservative and more economically challenged that are under served.
I think a lot of people don’t realize you can go 2-2.5 hours out side of SF and be in CA MAGA country.
California has social services. They are not sufficient for the scale of the problem. On top of this there's little incentive for states to build out full social nets when there's open borders between states. This is a job for the federal government and nothing else will be sufficient.
California has those services but they tend to be only funded to a fraction of the need. And the gap between the need vs help is a deep gulf due to how inequality lands on all other public and private areas of society
"California has those services but they tend to be only funded to a fraction of the need."
Sometimes it feels like they are well funded but the people running the programs live in a (very expensive) dream world that has no connection to the actual need.
California's 2025-26 budget for health and human services was $307 billion for 39 million people. Compared with France at $370 billion for 67 million people.
There's plenty of affordable housing outside of areas like the Bay area (or Hong Kong, Vienna, London, etc.). Why in the world would someone want to destroy what makes those areas desirable in the name of "affordability"?
The fact that these areas are highly competitive is what keeps them desireable.
When I was in Cali, I lived in Tracy, Stockton, and outside Sacremento because while I was a tech worker, I wasn't a top 1% tech worker. Not everyone needs to live in the Bay.
> Why in the world would someone want to destroy what makes those areas desirable
If low density is the crucial factor in determining desirability, why aren't Manhattan apartments basically free and tiny houses in rural Montana being sold for tens of millions?
> When I was in Cali, I lived in Tracy, Stockton, and outside Sacremento because while I was a tech worker, I wasn't a top 1% tech worker. Not everyone needs to live in the Bay.
Did you commute into the Bay?
Because by my count, Stockton to SF or Stockton to Menlo Park is a 3-hours/day commute. 3 hours/day on the highway may be surviving, but it sure as shit isn't living (just in case anyone from outside the US thinks this is an extreme outlier, I worked with a number of QA folks in the Bay who had commutes this bad, or worse)
Stockton to Cupertino... Tracy to SF and Cupertino. I also commuted to Sacremento for a while.
I made about half as much as my co-workers (I was contract) but I took home more due to the difference in living expenses. Also, I had a house instead of an apartment.
Well when I was much younger (19) and lived in North Hollywood but worked in downtown LA, I walked as I didn't own a car. I was considered a freak because everyone in LA at that time drove everywhere... even to the end of the block.
Now, decades later, I have no desire to be anywhere "trendy" or "hip". I want affordability, stability, space, and quiet.
There is a part of California that still has ancient telegraph lines complete with weathered copper with the blueish colour. Nobody has come by to scrap it yet. So it’s really a matter of proximity to wherever antisocial people choose to live.