Choosing the suburbs of Dallas a city which "has a population from a myriad of ethnic and religious backgrounds and the sixth-largest LGBT population in the United States."

Outside of very high state taxes, most of the other issues seem to stem mostly from excessively high real estate prices. In Texas the lack of mountains, oceans and rivers means expansion in all direction keeps new development cheap and homeownership affordable - not any specific policies.

Secondly, Dallas has some serious air quality problems that I hope reverse soon due to lax state level pollution policies. (https://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2017/06/22/michae...)

There is plenty of land in most states and it's not the 'more mountains' that makes Cali expensive to live in.

The air quality problems is most cities are in fact due to geography, prevailing winds etc..

We all drive pretty much the same cars.

It's not the cars. It's the coal.

I dunno, how is this different from the Amish or Hasidic jews having their own isolated communities? These people want to raise their families in communities which they feel share their values. Is this not the market force at work? What's the issue here?

> 'Refugees from California'

These people have an absurd victim complex.

We've been trying to exfiltrate the disowned LGBT children of conservative states for decades, so I suppose a bit of role reversal is fair play.

Bye Felicia. /s

This sounds bad, but I question if their political views would have really mattered as much if Texas wasn't much cheaper. Being able to buy a house instead of forever renting a tiny place sounds like the real incentive. Regressive social policies are just a bonus.

>This sounds bad, but I question if their political views would have really mattered as much if Texas wasn't much cheaper.

The article claims he ran for congress twice without support from the republican party.

That can't have been easy on his pocketbook.

What are those "nice things" that blue states have that others don't? Looking at the two states in the TFA I can hardly see what meaningful good things CA has that TX doesn't.

I live in Texas, born and raised and have for the majority of my life, and go to CA quite frequently.

The nice things CA has are mostly related to laws designed to protect people and employees.

For instance, the most important thing CA has that’s relevant to me is that non-competes are illegal in CA. And that in CA recently the employer must disclose salary range for position if asked. As well as pro-privacy legislation and pro net-neutrality legislation. The recreational marijuana would be a nice bonus (I don’t really smoke, but my wife does a lot and it would be really nice for her to not have to go to sketchy dealers and risk being jailed when she takes the stuff back home).

I still haven’t gotten a good enough job offer to offset the cost (after doing some COLA analysis for me to have the same quality of life in Cali my salary would basically have to be doubled, and I make quite a decent salary in Texas), but if/when that offer comes along, I will seriously consider California as a permanent residence.

I'm not sure if many of these are really good things, certainly not "recreational" marijuana, but in any case they do cost money. And I think it is highly ironic to praise "pro-privacy" legislation of a state that is the home of Google, Facebook and their ilk.

For disclosure, moved from Chicago to San Jose ~4 years ago, moved to ATX over the past month, and could not be happier. Well, may be if going back to Chicago, but ATX is more convenient for family reasons anyway.

Where can I find a $250K mortgage in California because I can find that almost anywhere in TX. 3/2/2 with a 1/4-1/2 acre lot.