What Is That California Dream-Thing & Where's It Going?

Hunker-down on this subject if you can.
Any way anyone might look at what's ahead, there are seismic shifts in demographics and the new economic geography in the first decade of the 21st Century.
Signs of shift frequently first appear in coastal California then move inland - like right here in Arizona where Maricopa County is the fastest-growing region in the entire country.

Here in Mesa - in a map that's not been updated recently - we can see that demographic and economic dispersal in this image from City Data of the entire physical geography showing the concentrations of incomes into housing choice areas.
They tend to cluster:
Red areas are high-income
Blue areas are low- and middle- income
Please note this map does not yet update data from southeast Mesa or the eastern sector of east Mesa where single-family home construction in secluded enclaves of gated master-planned communities are taking place in another suburban real estate boom 
The take-away from the author of a presentation that was published on June 16, 2018 is housing affordability 

That's the way it rolls here in The Valley of Sun, attracting new residents and siphoning off tech industries from California to a more favorable, less-regulated business climate that provides a lower wage scale to recruit workers in a "right-to-work" state. At the same time we have issues with workforce development to deliver the talent needed.
Arizona's education system ranks at the bottom of all the fifty states. What new housing we do see is, with a few exceptions, is simply not affordable or equitable or inclusive. . . furthermore it doesn't look like it is going to "fixed' sometime soon.  

"This is not an issue of suburbs versus the urban core. It is important to recognize that a vibrant core no more needs dying suburbs then vibrant suburbs need a dying core. Both urban cores and suburbs can prosper, creating a stronger urban area. . . "

A refreshing perspective from Wendell Cox that is neither ideological nor tied to any political party. It is a fundamentally pragmatic view that domestic policy should principally seek to better people's lives, by facilitating a rising standard of living and reducing poverty. . .
The Imperative: A Rising Standard of Living and Less Poverty
The issue is particularly ripe in California, where public policies relating to housing are having virtually the opposite effect. Housing costs have already increased poverty and reduced the discretionary income of middle-income households.
Again, author Wendell Cox repeats:This is not an issue of suburbs versus the urban core.
The Housing Crisis
"Southern California’s biggest crisis relates to housing. Housing is important to the standard of living and alleviating poverty. It is the largest element of household budgets. When housing more expensive, it leaves households with less discretionary income to purchase other goods and services. This will, other things being equal, reduce economic output from levels that would be otherwise attained.
This has been developing for more than four decades as house price to income ratios (such as the median multiple, the median house price divided by the median household income) have doubled and tripled above historical levels and well above those of other metropolitan areas. Attention is often focused on lower income affordable housing, a problem virtually everywhere, but most parts of the country do not suffer so severe a middle-income housing affordability problem. Low-income housing affordability is important and one of the best ways to minimize it is to ensure that there is middle-income housing affordability. . . "
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The California Dream has Moved Away 

. . . A bit of historical perspective is appropriate       

by Wendell Cox 06/16/2015

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