Why You Shouldn't Move to California
by Philip Greenspun; created 1998
Home : Travel : California : Moving to California
by Philip Greenspun; created 1998
Home : Travel : California : Moving to California
Whenever I'm suffering through a miserable New England winter, I ask myself why I don't just move to California. I finally figured it out one day in downtown Santa Cruz. They've posted signs throughout the city center listing the things that you can't do (photo above):
no skateboarding
no skate devices
no alcohol
no bikes on sidewalks
no dogs
No dogs? That's right. You can't walk a dog down the street in downtown Santa Cruz. Downtown Santa Cruz isn't especially crowded either.
Why do Californians need so many rules? Because they all moved there to enjoy the land, the climate, to take a job. They did not move there in order to become part of a community. In fact, they might very well hate all the people around them but still choose to live in California. This does not happen in northern Michigan or central Massachusetts. If you don't like the community, you move. There is no other reason to be there.
If Californians did not have myriads of carefully set forth rules, they would simply kill each other.
My friends in California mostly have contempt for their fellow citizens. I ask them "today you're going to run into a person on the street that you've never met before. I'm not going to tell you anything about this person. The person could be of any age, sex, or economic class. Do you think you will enjoy meeting this person?" The response is always "I think the person will have the wrong political beliefs" or "the person will probably be a smoker" or "I bet the person won't be a vegetarian, so I can't talk to him" or "I doubt that this person will be educated or intelligent."
