The news yesterday, “Los Angeles County saw the largest decline of any county in the United States in 2025, according to new census data published on March 26.” Meanwhile, “A major Wall Street powerhouse is weighing a southern escape as New York City’s new mayor talks about soaking big business with taxes, according to a report published Sunday.” And so the race is on – two major metropolises, both deep blue, vying to see which one can vacate and die the most rapidly. Predictable as it is, it is still sad. And the sadness is only intensified by the knowledge that such decline is preventable.
Regular readers know the lament here is personal – I am an escapee from California. I am also fortunate and blessed – my wife and I could have afforded to stay there, buy even with the affordability issue solved, the place has become unlivable. While the taxes, extreme cost of living, and other bedrock indicators are awful – they are not what drove us out. Rather it was an attitude that pervades the place. I have run across three stories in the last 24 hours that are great illustrations.
I love the car culture of Southern California, but it is about to die as “Leno’s Law” that enables older cars, mostly in the hands of loving collectors, to avoid smog regulations has expired. No longer can you retore a classic – at least not if you want to register and operate it. Good-bye car shows which are such a great way to spend a Saturday morning in that lovely California weather. Imagine being so full of yourself that you don’t think twice about ending one of the great community building institutions of the region.
As it turns out, Gavin Newsom’s wife is simply a piece of wealthy, bubble-wrapped, know-nothing blonde *&^%$. This profile will take your breathe away. Her attitude about the southern U.S. is so ignorant, and so bigoted, that you’ll need a forklift to help get your jaw off the floor.
Finally, out of one of the toniest parts of SoCal come a story of road rage in which some people in an upscale European sports car try to drive some bicyclists off the road, apparently just because the cyclists were slowing traffic down.
What ties these stories together is the attitude of the provocateurs – an attitude that is so smug and so immensely secure in its self- appointed righteousness that it not merely judges others, but is more than willing to enforce that righteousness on others that may not share their view. If you disagree, you are not merely wrong, you are anathema, to be either changed or driven from the midst. And, of course, given the depopulation pace, clearly driven from the midst is happening – rapidly.
Population density, though expressed very differently in NYC and SoCal, creates social pressures that are difficult to manage. Lots of people doing lots of things are pressed together. It requires greater tolerance than my now rural life demands. My neighbors now are far enough away that I can ignore them when they do something I don’t agree with. That’s not true when all that separates you from your neighbor is a thin wall between apartments. And yet in both NYC and SoCal, we are seeing less and less tolerance, not more.
I stayed in SoCal far longer than I was comfortable there. In no small part that was to pad the retirement cushion. But it was also because I felt God’s call to bring His gospel – for such is the only thing that can correct this awful attitude and trend. But the truly sad part is I have watched this same attitude pervade the church and seen three separate congregations there explode as they argued over things that in the end just did not matter. Things that were about personal preference, not the Gospel of Christ.
This story of from the life of Jesus seems so prophetic when it comes to places like SoCal and NYC. It certainly crosses my mind as I read stories like these and wonder if I should have stayed to try and help. Jesus did say to his disciples, “Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet….”
I fear the fate that awaits these places. God is a God of redemption, but He is also a God of judgement.
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