A lot of the downsides that people like to complain about California like regulatory burden, bureaucracy, and high taxes are mostly true, but until housing cost skyrocketed in the last decade none of that mattered to most people. The vast majority of California’s problems stem from unbalanced supply and demand across a number of goods and services.
Ever since the budgetary woes of the 2000s, the state government has really turned it around and with all the laws tackling the housing problem passed in the last few years, California is going to keep on trucking just like haters gonna keep on hating (which they should, we’re overpopulated enough as it is).