Welcome to big city California Land

[oladub]

bust asked: "Would you rather live in North Dakota or California? North Dakota ranked first for quality of life according to US News, California last."

bust, That depends. If I was a multi-millionaire and money was no object and I could build walls around my estate, I would rather live in California. I'm sure there are some good private schools there for the kids and of course all the fancy restaurants and good weather. But I'm not a multi-millionaire so I would prefer to live in a place where my family is safe, there are good public schools, I can afford housing, the children aren't subjected to liberal brainwashing, ND's murder rate is only 58% that of CA's, etc.. California's personal income tax is the highest in the Country and its effective total income tax is fifth highest. I did live in California for awhile and left in large part because government stacked the deck so much in favor of the rich there including allowing or creating artificial shortages of housing to drive up prices. Last year, 142,000 more people moved from CA to other states than moved to CA from other states for those kind of reasons I wound up living and raising family in the midwest and never regretted it. However, California, in my opinion, offers more vacation opportunities than North Dakota. I would rather go to California for vacations.

Speaking of income equality, the Bank of North Dakota used to provide interest free loans to its college students to already inexpensive public universities. Unfortunately for North Dakotans, Obama expanded the federal role in student loans causing the end of that North Dakota program.