I recently moved to California. Before i moved, people asked me “why are you moving there, its so bad?”. Now that I’m here, i understand it less. The state is beautiful. There is so much to do.
I know the cost of living is high, and people think the gun control laws are ridiculous (I actually think they are reasonable, for the most part). There is a guy I work with here that says “the policies are dumb” but can’t give me a solid answer on what is so bad about it.
So, what is it that California does (policy-wise) that people hate so much?
There are better metrics to measure quality of life. Like for example, the Better Life Index by OECD. This index takes a look at housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work life balance and gives a much more comprehensive view of a country’s performance than just GDP. Countries like China have very high GDP and countries like Qatar have very high GDP per capita, yet neither of these places are good places to live in or offer a good quality of life to the average citizen, but the GDP figures don’t show this. That’s why I don’t take these figures seriously. We need something like the Better Life Index for the individual states here to really get an idea of how things are going. I have a feeling that states like Maine, Vermont, or Utah which have low GDP and GDP per capita offer a much better quality of life to their average residents than states with high GDP and GDP per capital like Massachusetts, New York, or California.
i got to searching, and yeah, that’s a much better system.
and they do have the state figure breakdowns you are after, as individual scores for “regions”
have fun! (click here)