Oh, brother, you read way too much into what I was saying. California has been a shithole since at least Reagan's last term, and LA has always really been a sick, pukey place. My evidence is musical. Have you ever noticed that almost every song writer of almost every genre that has moved to LA writes songs about how shitty LA is and every song writer that grows up there thinks it's great? Seriously, think of all the songs about how shitty LA is from all the genres that come to mind.
My favorite lines from "Midwest Blues" "Iowa's a callin' me cuz out here I've got nuthin' to lose." and "Takin 80 all the way with my severance pay until I reach the Hawkeye State." Dylanesque.
Always hated Cali. I don't even like their ****ing wine and all those cute little village trendinations.
California has just finally
reached the point where is has become unlivable. In part, of course, because of the cost of living, which is the real route of the desire for more illegals. Who needs middle class/tradesmen and blue color labor when you can have an elite aristocracy of obscene wealth and a slave class that does all the actual labor? Didn't work for Rome and probably won't work for California. Other than the usual natural causes, they have more fires because they refuse to maintain modern forestry practices, oh and allowing the rich to build multimillion dollar enclaves along the edge of unmanaged forests just to add additional sources of fire in already high-risk areas. Given California's climate in general and the many great droughts that have struck the mostly desert southwest United States perhaps building more reservoirs and creating larger water sources in the wet years might have been possible. Covid's effect is too recent and perhaps too small to have caused a cross continental journey from SoCal to West Des Moines.