San Francisco is a ****hole.

There are no two ways about the fact that San Francisco (in particular) or the surrounding area (in general) is not the same as it used to be. After living in the Bay Area (SF City, San Jose, Danville and Dublin) for 18 years, I finally upped stakes and joined the Great California Exodus. When a full 40%+ of a region are actively considering leaving, there's obviously something amiss. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/03/nearly-half-of-bay-area-residents-say-they-want-to-leave/ My parents lived there in the 1970s, they were absolutely stunned when they went back in the mid 2000s.

Perhaps it's partially a matter of age. What's important to you when you're 25 isn't what's important to you when you're 45. When you're young, free with hope and ambition, you'll be happy enough to pay ridiculous money to live with other folks and walk around human feces and needles. When you're looking to raise a couple of kids, suddenly the San Francisco environment is utterly unacceptable. Four months into Texas, and I miss two things. The variety of scenery which was within driving distance of the Bay Area, and it must be said that the locals here have no idea what good Asian food tastes like. (On the other hand, European countries are better represented). That's it. My quality of life here has shot up, I should have moved ages ago.

What the poster said above about BART is absolutely correct. Nothing says welcome to San Francisco as accurately as getting onto the BART train at SFO, and realising that the reason that part of the car is empty is due to the malodorous homeless man sleeping on the bench seat. It is starting to affect the city's tourism and convention scenes, people and conventions are staying away. Democrats want to host the 2020 national convention in SF, Republicans also want them to host it in SF, but as an example of what happens if you vote Democrat. At the State line here in TX, there are billboards: "Welcome to Texas. Don't vote for what you just fled". And, as mentioned, the BART cars are ancient. They are, finally, starting to replace them, but it's symptomatic of a larger problem facing California: It's a house of cards, they're willing to let the good times roll without paying the upkeep, and eventually something is going to break. I was listening to the local news station last time I was in town (I go frequently), and they observed that when Governor Pat Brown was in charge in the 1960s, some 40% of the State's budget went into infrastructure. When his son, Jerry Brown left office this year, 3% of the State's budget was going on infrastructure.

I'm sorry, but hoping for a good snow pack year, and then issueing water rationing restrictions if the snow doesn't come in the volume needed is not a viable sustainment plan in a State where the water infrastructure was designed for 25 million people in the 1960s, and the State population is approaching 50 million. At this time, the State needs so much money that if the State put 100% of its budget into road maintenance for one year, it still wouldn't fix the roads and bridges, let alone everything else which needs fixing. It's all very well to look at the GDP of Santa Clara County and say that all is well with the Bay Area, but if they're not spending it in places that SCC needs to survive, like reservoirs, food production in the Central Valley, roads to get product to SCC etc, all the GDP in the world isn't going to help them.

You have teachers and policemen living in RVs in the parking lots of the schools and police stations because their official homes are too far to commute. There is absolutely no expansion planning in the SF Bay Area. For years, new housing wasn't permitted in SF, they didn't want to change the skyline. Finally they relented, and a bunch of new apartment high-rises are going up in South of Market. So, if they couldn't build up, they built out, and the surrounding nine-county region has become far more urbanised. People travel further from their new homes. Further, because of the combination of Prop 13 and rent control, folks who have places to live sure as hell aren't moving home, so they are instead choosing to commute longer distances as well, further overstraining the transport infrastructure which, also, has not really changed since the 1980s. My 28 mile commute from home to work took over 90 minutes routinely. I have more important things to do with my life.

At least here in San Antonio, they are planning for expansion. There is construction all over the place.

Thats worrying all right for those of us living here in gun free Dublin.

The second amendment can be read in any number of different ways, depending on what you think a well regulated militia means

Regardless of your position on 2A (And California is one of the very few States silent on the matter of firearms in the State constitution), an anti-gun position could perhaps be supported if the laws in California actually made any sort of practical sense. "I live in San Francisco, I am not permitted to carry a gun anywhere in the State but if I live in Wine Country (Just north of SF), I can carry a gun anywhere in the State including in San Francisco". "This pistol is too old, and must be banned. This pistol is too new, and must be banned. This pistol is the wrong color, and must be banned." "This rifle has cosmetic features we don't like, and if you don't spend 30 seconds with a screwdriver, we ban it". What is this actually achieving?