And specifically southern California, and someone who is a home owner, I can tell you this.
Don't believe the (anti) hype.
Yes, rates have increased over the last decade. I could spout off the reasons why I think that they have, but what it does come down to is that it has. However with that being said, it is not so outrageously priced that it can't be afforded.
There are some things that make it more risky....
Living near a canyon will increase the cost quickly.
Living in an area with wild/natural vegetation will increase the cost.
Living in an area with trees which are not regularly maintained will increase the cost.
Living in a home that is greater than 7 miles from a Fire Station will increase the cost.
Have a couple of those risk factors...the price will increase, because the likelihood of a total loss is much greater. I live in an expensive state. The taxes are high (average gallon of gas right now where I live....$4.49). Cost of living is aggressive (I have to plan on when to use my electricity, because using it between 4-10pm is almost triple the rate at other times of the day).
I can be done, but sacrifices.....yeah. Gotta have those too.
~Jeordam
I agree with this, but some of those things you even listed are "Beyond" your control, beyond your own personal agency. You can't control how other people maintain their trees 20 years after the house was built, and 10 years after you bought your house, for those were emergent conditions and not static ones. Some things are beyond individual human control and thus individual human responsibility and agency. They are a collective problem, and the collective problem needs to create systems to encourage accountability and best practices. There needs to be consequences that reduces brush and so on that maintenance is performed. As voltaire said rejecting pure idealism (and thus also pure pessimism) “That is very well put . . . but we must cultivate our garden.”
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Sigh but you are missing my point I was saying about Scapegoating. We Scapegoat selectively and we Scapegoat with incomplete information for humans just love to Scapegoat and find fault that this world is not as it should be and we let our emotions / sufferings do the talking even if the thing our emotions want us to do actually will not solve the problem, it will not actually "cultivate our garden." Yet my gut is personally gratified (but not satisfied in a religious sense of the term) when I can find something to tear down and attack. To raise up and to tear down is the nature of idol worship, they are the same just different expressions of the same instinct.
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In sum what the other guy said.
I had enough of people blaming us for Katrina to last a lifetime. NM
