[Genuine Realist]

I have been hearing the "everyone is leaving California" stories for 40+ years now.

California has more out-migration, both as a percentage of population and in absolute terms, than any other of the fifty states.  It has been in the top five "worst" for quite a few years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U...._migration

Ironically, California has had net in-migration of the wealthier and highly educated, even as other demographic groups flee: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-c...story.html. As a recent transplant, I suppose I count too, at least in the latter category. 

Got to say, seeing how other places have handled the pandemic, I've never been happier to be in the Bay Area than I am right now. And there are probably more friends of mine from Stanford undergrad back in the Bay Area than at any point since we graduated in 2006, if that's any measure of who stays, who comes, and who goes.

You should have lived in Santa Clara County in the 50's and early 60's. It was a spectacular suburb then. The attractiveness is a big factor in what brought Silicon Valley into being.

Mind you, I was a middle class kid then, in Los Altos, though back then the different towns didn't signify too much (other than Palo Alto). There was poverty around, still a number of migratory farm workers in Mountain View, Milpitas, and down in Gilroy and Salinas, though they were a long way off. Steinbeck Country - I'm talking 'Tortilla Flats' and 'Cannery Row', not 'Grapes of Wrath' - still existed. My family wasn't rich, but not poor either. Considerations of how the other half lived was way beyond the ken of a kid under 15.

Now everyone (figuratively speaking) is rich. Mountain View, where I live now, used to be one of the poorest towns in the County. Now Castro Street is right out of Paris. Even Milpitas looks classy - sort of - and Gilroy is a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. My family is not displeased with the way property values have risen, and we were fortunate enough to buy a couple of third-class tickets on the Silicon Valley express - enough to live here, anyway. But even so, something has been lost. I would discourage any young family from settling here, unless you're with Google or Facebook or the like.

You would never guess what the game changer was. Not the tech, as such, but the building of 280 in 1964. The placement of the freeway destroyed the lovely rural character of much of the Valley.

[Genuine Realist]

I have been hearing the "everyone is leaving California" stories for 40+ years now.

California has more out-migration, both as a percentage of population and in absolute terms, than any other of the fifty states.  It has been in the top five "worst" for quite a few years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U...._migration

Ironically, California has had net in-migration of the wealthier and highly educated, even as other demographic groups flee: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-c...story.html. As a recent transplant, I suppose I count too, at least in the latter category. 

Got to say, seeing how other places have handled the pandemic, I've never been happier to be in the Bay Area than I am right now. And there are probably more friends of mine from Stanford undergrad back in the Bay Area than at any point since we graduated in 2006, if that's any measure of who stays, who comes, and who goes.

You should have lived in Santa Clara County in the 50's and early 60's. It was a spectacular suburb then. The attractiveness is a big factor in what brought Silicon Valley into being.

Mind you, I was a middle class kid then, in Los Altos, though back then the different towns didn't signify too much (other than Palo Alto). There was poverty around, still a number of migratory farm workers in Mountain View, Milpitas, and down in Gilroy and Salinas, though they were a long way off. Steinbeck Country - I'm talking 'Tortilla Flats' and 'Cannery Row', not 'Grapes of Wrath' - still existed. My family wasn't rich, but not poor either. Considerations of how the other half lived was way beyond the ken of a kid under 15.

Now everyone (figuratively speaking) is rich. Mountain View, where I live now, used to be one of the poorest towns in the County. Now Castro Street is right out of Paris. Even Milpitas looks classy - sort of - and Gilroy is a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. My family is not displeased with the way property values have risen, and we were fortunate enough to buy a couple of third-class tickets on the Silicon Valley express - enough to live here, anyway. But even so, something has been lost. I would discourage any young family from settling here, unless you're with Google or Facebook or the like.

You would never guess what the game changer was. Not the tech, as such, but the building of 280 in 1964. The placement of the freeway destroyed the lovely rural character of much of the Valley.