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@ Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)
2025-02-21 02:03:00
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq9aamzvek2796ylnznk6u89a6pctpxv5m4xvcyl8ragaa43zjp5cqnstvcj seems somewhere between an oversimplification and a subjective judgement to claim any one state is overall better than another, but to answer the spirit of the question to the best of my ability:
Having grown up in Oregon and later spent 11 years in the Bay Area, I found the cost of living prohibitively difficult, much of which comes down to zoning and renting legislation. The area had the best trains I've experienced in the US and less than terrible public transit generally, but it was still unreliable, gross, loud, and deprioritized relative to car infrastructure enough that people who could afford to drive pretty uniformly did that instead. Bike infra was similarly lacking. By comparison, in the much smaller town in Oregon I grew up in, I took buses every day that ran consistently and mostly on time, and I could get everywhere by bike (and much more safely). They've continued adding bus-only lanes and properly protected bike lanes, bike-only turns, bike lockers, etc. The Bay Area has far more potential in this area but hasn't tapped it. And California outside the Bay Area is totally inaccessible without a car.