44 Comments
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Josh Barro

Delightful writing this week. I live in California and realize there's one big reason things are so expensive here - it's a great place to be and too many people want to be here. High demand. I love other places in the US and usually find something nice to say about them. Being rude isn't necessary, ever. Nail on the head about DST, too - much ado about nothing except everyone who hates it would hate the results if their wishes came true.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Josh Barro

Atmospheric rivers are nothing new in California and are certainly not more troublesome than they have been in the past. They're actually critically important parts of California's hydrology. Just one atmospheric river can provide 1/4-1/2 of one of the state's region's water requirements for a year. Droughts are also not new and are a frequent part of the state's history. There's an old saying here, "In California, a drought ends with a flood" and it always seems to come true.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Josh Barro

I think the productive thing to do is to shift the conversation from *whether* we should shift the clocks to *when*. European DST starts later and ends sooner than North American DST, and yet they vacation sooner and for longer. Discuss!

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Josh Barro

That painting is positively frightening, you could hang it in your apartment as a warning to people who praise honeydew melons or engage in other antisocial behavior.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Josh Barro

As a proud (?) Tampanian, I applaud Josh’s dedication to civility regardless of our life choices.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Sara Fay

At this point I want to keep DST around just so I can continue reading Josh's hilarious roasts of the inevitable "abolish DST" pieces.

Expand full comment

I'm sitting here on an unseasonably cold March evening in north Oakland (the temperature has dipped below fifty degrees!), reading about how people in the East and Midwest, where it is considered completely normal to endure months of subfreezing weather every winter followed by months of sweltering heat every summer, think the weather out here must be getting intolerable due to climate change. I must confess I find that kind of weird.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Josh Barro

Rather than finding it rude, I take great comfort when some out-of-region fellow/fellowette explains to me that there's no way they could cope with our MN/WI winters. It means they're not here fucking things up for the rest of us.

appreciate the congrats

Expand full comment
founding
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Sara Fay

I was born and raised in the suburbs of L.A. Personally I think I would prefer a more seasonal climate as I love cold and hate heat, in the end I don't think I would trade it for weather that was less predictable. I spent 2 years in college at Northwestern near Chicago and loved the seasons, including winter, but of course I was in a university bubble and didn't have to try and drive in that crap or deal with it in any real way. The predictability (relatively speaking) of California's weather trumps everything else,. The shifts due to climate change are real but overstated and going Chicken Little about it isn't helping. It turns off the people who need convincing and when California fails to burn to the ground or slide into the ocean, it allows the climate deniers to point and say that nothing's wrong. As far as out-of-staters whining about L.A. (or California in general) politics and lifestyle, when I hear it I usually just tell them I can't imagine living anywhere else, and otherwise do not engage. As the only center-lefter in a family that ranges from center-right to full MAGA, I have enough to deal with trying to talk them down, and they actually live here.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023Liked by Sara Fay

Up until 2 years ago, I was a life long Angeleno and, as I’ve written here before, I miss it dearly. Great weather, energy, the mountains, the beach, the desert, there’s always something exciting going on -- love it.

I used to travel quite a bit and over the last 15 years, whenever someone would find out I was from LA, they would continue to shit on the place. I remember one guy on a plane who was visiting his son in Irvine. He just went on and on about how horrible the place is...traffic, smog, etc.. He said he thought his son would rather move back, but his wife is a native and didn’t want to move. I thought to myself, “Are you sure your son wants to move?” I asked him where he was from. He said Michigan...but now lives in Vegas! And he’s shitting on LA!!!

I will say that I go back a couple of times a year and the homeless situation seems worse every time and does seem to be affecting the quality of life. Downtown seems to have much of the gains it’s made over the last 20 years. There are encampments in the west San Fernando Valley, where I grew up, and around Silver Lake, where I lived for 26 years. That said, I’m visiting in 2 weeks and looking forward to it.

Expand full comment

California is paradise and will always be, I reckon. Sure, one season every couple of years might be uncomfortable (god knows I’ve had it up to here with this particular winter) but its weather is still miles better than anywhere else. It’s my home and I’m not leaving for anything, let alone some shitty politicians or politics.

Expand full comment
Mar 9, 2023·edited Mar 9, 2023

I guess it depends what you've grown up with. As I've rarely experienced it, and never in the extreme, cold is alien and thoroughly menacing to me. And I would actually miss the warmth if I lived in ever-temperate California. A skinny slip of a child in the South is unaware of the heat. It's true that when you get old the humidity in particular becomes enervating, and the summers seem longer ("they *were* getting longer"). But swimming holes achieve their Platonic perfection in complement with hot days. As do popsicles, lemonade, a relieving midday thunderstorm, a certain lassitude in the afternoon which is not entirely unpleasant ...

Expand full comment

If you really appreciate great weather and scenery and can afford it, California is great. If you don’t care much about weather and want a suburban lifestyle and more money available to go on vacations (or if your family is there and you are close to them), Omaha or Minneapolis or Tampa might make more sense. People have different values or needs and it’s fine that they make different life choices (there’s a parallel here to insufferable left/right wing politics that can’t imagine the existence of swing voters and others with different values than their own, by the way).

Expand full comment

I personally dislike the time change because it disrupts my appreciation of the natural change in sunrise and sunset across the season. Nonetheless, I know you are right in practical terms.

Expand full comment

Time shifts can be hell on people with mood disorders, so I can't say I wouldn't prefer a fixed calendar. I'd prefer Winter time year-round but I'll take DST if that's what's on offer.

Expand full comment

As someone living in San Jose, CA which is (well, the whole Bay Area) arguably the most cosmopolitan part of the US... I ask where else to move to in the US (for cheaper cost of living) that is at least reasonably cosmopolitan and has reasonable weather? I point out that my team of 17 were born in 12 different countries.

Expand full comment