1st, no, I have never lived in CA, never will but most of my family does or has lived in So.CA. One sister has been in Burbank since the early 50's. They paid $17k for their house in 1955. Value now, close to $1 million. Thanks to Prop 13 they won't be moving. My other sister has been in CA since 1979 so missed the cutoff for that. They have to total of 8 children, guess where they are? 4 in Arizona and 1 in Oklahoma.

My now SIL has his Masters in Computer Science, graduated Magna cum Laude , Was offered jobs with Microsoft in Seattle and Google in CA, turned down both because of the high cost of housing.