The Californian’s Dilemma
This week in The Bold Italic, we are publishing A Californian’s Dilemma, a series that goes beyond the headlines about the “California Exodus,” featuring essays from San Franciscans about why they’re choosing to stay or leave. Check back daily for new articles.
It seems like there’s a moving truck on our block every day in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. Recently, I found out that my apartment building had three open units, and the landlord had slashed prices by nearly 25%. The giveaways in my Buy Nothing Facebook groups and the items on Craigslist are indicative that people are offloading — entire furniture sets, cookware, pantry items, and innumerable random items you routinely find when cleaning out and packing up.
I moved to San Francisco almost four years ago from New York City. My now husband got a career opportunity in the Bay Area that he couldn’t turn down. It would ultimately solidify our transition as struggling kids to established young adults. As a journalist and content developer, I could work almost anywhere. So, I followed my beckoning future out West.
Enchanted as I immediately was by California’s majestic redwoods, coastal towns, wine country, and the readily accessible marijuana, I spent the first two years continuing to pine for my beloved New York. I yearned for subways and restaurants that stayed open past 9 p.m., four distinct seasons, and the hubbub of city life. Having lost my close network of friends in New York, moving to California also felt lonely. The sprawling hillsides and open skies mirrored my own feelings of vulnerability.
San Francisco was different in every way — and the rents were even more exorbitant. I had moved from the second-most expensive city in the country to the most expensive, and I felt like I had lost everything I loved to top it off. I have been a lifelong nomad (I’ve never lived anywhere for longer than six years), so I resigned myself to accept that, as I did with every previous place, I would come to grow fond of California. But would it ever feel like home? On that, I remained skeptical.
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But then, it crept in. I can’t say exactly when, but sometime around my third year here, I found myself leaning into this place. The charm of driving through small towns, the serenity of being still in vast forests, the joy of eating California’s bountiful foods.
It helped that I, too, eventually found my professional footing, albeit I espoused a new archetype: the Bay Area tech worker. Whatever the case, it allowed me to spend less time worrying about saving money and more time soaking in California’s innumerable offerings: exhilarating hikes, day trips to wine country, and quick getaways to bed and breakfasts along the Northern California coast. There was legal marijuana. Progressive (or at least moderately liberal) policies. And as people of color, the latter had become especially important for our safety. My husband’s and my parents live in Pennsylvania and Texas, respectively, and we’re always hyper-aware of how vulnerable they are to xenophobia or, like this past year, exposure to Covid-19 because wearing a mask in these states largely continues to be a political gesture.
But just as I’ve settled in — just when I’ve been left wanting more of it all — California seems to be telling me it doesn’t want me here anymore.
After six months of quarantine but nowhere near flattening the curve, we’ve become another trope: that of the techies actively planning their California exodus during Covid-19. With the ability to work remotely indefinitely, tech workers like us are no longer obligated to pay exorbitant rent prices here. Ironically, that’s catalyzed a drop in one-bedroom rents by about 14% compared to 2019. Even so, buying a house remains out of reach, with median housing prices in the Bay Area increasing despite a pandemic, wildfires, and smoke.
I don’t think it’s in us to survive another smoke-congested wildfire season indoors.
In July, we said our first weird, hugless goodbye to friends who joined this exodus. Having finished out their lease, they made the overnight decision to move to Houston from Palo Alto. Within two weeks, they became homeowners in the upper-middle-class suburb of Sugar Land.
This year’s unprecedented wildfire season has solidified what we’ve known for years: This is just the beginning of similar and likely worse wildfire seasons. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. In 2018, we spent at least two weeks wearing masks to protect ourselves from the unhealthy air caused by the catastrophic Camp Fire that wiped out the nearby city of Paradise. This year, we spent double that amount of time cooped up inside, without even fresh air to offer a reprieve from quarantine life.
While the fires rage on, we’ve at least temporarily gained back our fresh air and freedom to be outside again. But we know it’s short-lived. Even if we look beyond this year’s wildfire season, we know we’re just buying time until the next one. To be frank, I don’t think it’s in us to survive another smoke-congested wildfire season indoors — which is more than plausible if Trump wins in November and Covid-19 maintains its chokehold on us.
It’s become routine for my husband and me to talk about what’s next and to browse home listings in other cities. We always assumed we’d leave the Bay Area one day for more affordable pastures like Pittsburgh, where we could get more house than we need, or for somewhere familiar, like New York. But now the rest of California also seems like a faraway dream.
Arguably, at least where wildfires are concerned, we’re safer in coastal, foggy San Francisco than the surrounding cities. On this, we come back to the affordability issue. We can’t get on board with paying upwards of $1 million for a small one- maybe two-bedroom apartment. But we know living anywhere else in the state more than likely exposes us to increased wildfire risk — and hardly much more affordability.
Out of reasonable options, we continue to ask ourselves: Why bother to stay in California any longer?
Because I’m just starting to feel like I have a community here.
Because I love the serene forests and the charming small towns.
Because of the bounties of fresh food I get every weekend at my farmer’s market.
Because of the legalized marijuana.
Because of all the neighborhood spots I’ve come to frequent in the Haight.
And because of the sense of safety I’ve had calling the powerful Golden State our home.
We haven’t even hiked Yosemite yet. Or Kings Canyon. We haven’t soaked in enough of the L.A. sun or made enough weekend getaways to Sonoma. We haven’t spent enough time at Big Sur or on Pfeiffer Beach. We haven’t laid out enough in Golden Gate Park or in San Francisco Botanical Garden or on Lake Merritt. We haven’t eaten enough of the best vegan Chinese takeout or Nepali momos yet. Hell, we haven’t even seen Sacramento yet, for whatever it’s worth.
Because of these reasons and so many more, we find ourselves endlessly talking in circles every time it comes up that maybe it’s time to move on.
After spending my first couple of years pining for New York, California has cast its spell on me. Life out here really is a dream. Whereas New York will always be my first love, I would be lying if I said that California hadn’t captivated me and that I had grown so much more than fond of this place. Its magic had caught me off guard, and just when I least expected it, I’m left wanting so much more.
The truth is: I’m not finished with California. But it’s getting harder to justify. How much longer will I be able to ignore the lack of affordability and the looming existential threat? It’s the first time in my life where I feel like I’m scraping to find a reason to stay in a place despite my deep desire to do so. I’m in my early thirties, and these days, practicality reigns.
I know for certain I’m not finished with California, but it’s starting to really set in that California may be finished with me.
