Author Topic: Hawaii's population is shrinking?  (Read 6762 times)

Weasels wake

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Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« on: January 06, 2018, 02:31:07 PM »
Apparently so, not by that much, but it is.  I've almost uprooted and moved to Maui on several occasions, mostly in the 90's, but something always stopped me.  When my parents sold their condo there, early 90's, my dad and I had a very long conservation about that, because I wanted to know why.  Many of the things he said at the time I found in this article, I found this to be a very interesting read on this subject.  Do I regret not making the move?  To this day I'm still not sure.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/hawaii-has-record-low-unemployment-and-its-not-a-frozen-hellscape-why-are-people-leaving/ar-BBHTK9h?li=AA4Zjn&ocid=spartandhp
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all~wet

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2018, 03:25:48 PM »
Great place-hard to get by. High cost of living, very high property values inflated by out of state investors... high rents/lack of housing in general... all out of synch with local incomes. It is an economy dominated by tourism and a vast number of jobs being in hospitality. Employment is high- but many work multiple jobs just to get by.

The very best places once "discovered" are loved to death.

FRP

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2018, 03:30:34 PM »
Interesting. We have friends who have lived on Oahu for several decades. They have built a summer home on Vancouver Island because the summertime temperatures on Oahu where their home is have become difficult for them and their dog to tolerate. It is not coincidental that the Canadian town they have chosen is a surf town. We may see a gradual northward migration as global warming accelerates.

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PonoBill

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2018, 03:44:35 PM »
I had this conversation with Devin Blish on the shuttle yesterday. High cost of living, low to moderate income. It's not just a tourism factor though, it's the corrupt attitude towards business. I love living here. I'd never start a business here. The education/pay aspect is highly stratified. Natives/Locals are generally poorly educated and don't seem to have any aspirations for their kids to do better. That's a gross oversimplification bordering on racism, but that doesn't mean it isn't so.

The homeless element isn't exactly what you'd find elsewhere. It's not just people stretched by the nature of the economy. It's the usual catalog of drugs, alcohol and lots of bad choices (why not have a third kid when you're unmarried and living in your car?) but added to it is a simple reality that it's a great place to be homeless. I could live very comfortably in a tent here. Of course, it would be a hell of a tent, and I wouldn't surround it with trash and shopping carts, but the principle remains.
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SUPcheat

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2018, 04:34:49 PM »
Spending half my time in a place becoming increasingly over run by homeless, I noticed it in Maui, too.  Small knots of obvious addicts hanging about the parks and public places, making them much less than inviting than they should have been.

On the other hand, I didn't really care for the yuppie havens that dominated long stretches of the beach and prevented access to their beaches, either.  They were full of the usual cutesy wootsie art shops, restaurants etc. to appeal to well healed mainlanders etc at hundreds of percent markups.  There was a clear budget economy there if you looked for it that was at odds to the yuppie crap.

It also looked like you could get by since the agricultural abundance, fruits, vegetables, etc was there, along with the ability to fish and maybe even hunt on a subsistence level.  The young people at the hostel made me feel a little guilty.  Around coastal California, it is easy to be a millionaire and feel quite ordinary and non-special, if not even substandard, but I felt like an oligarch at the hostel.  The kids were so poor, raffish and hang loose, smoking those little hand rolled ciggies, it looked like there wasn't much upside to their existence there aside from the climate and the ability to run free and naked a good bit of the time. At least nobody kidnaped me and held me for ransom.

My concern might be quality of health care.  It's a tropical climate, and infections/diseases/etc. can take off rapidly and be very persistent.

There are a lot of older people I know around here that bought condos in Maui, then sold later, or who said they would retire there but didn't.  There must be a big rube turnover in the real estate sector for these mainland toe dippers.

I think the islands would make me feel a little uneasy after a while, although they are beyond magnificent to visit.
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PonoBill

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2018, 04:56:46 PM »
Really, you adapt.

For one thing, the south and west sides are for suckers. Good beaches, warm, more stores, yadda, yadda, but no privacy, dust and pollen in the air, living in air conditioning.

The north shore is much more livable, but the infrastructure is clunky. The inefficiencies of this place are staggering sometimes, and the shortsightedness of the politically influential people is astonishing. The town of Paia is a choke point. It takes twenty minutes of waiting to get to the one traffic light, from either direction. Any halfway competent traffic engineer could clear up the roadblock in a day by eliminating on-street parking on the main road (Hana Highway) and doubling or tripling the size of visitor lots on the edge of town. Dirt lots would be fine. They have fucking angled parking on the south side of the street--the worst possible thing to have in trafficked areas--people backing into traffic blind. Fucking brilliant. Not only would that make four lanes plus a bit for turn pockets out of two lanes, but it would also eliminate the stunningly thoughtless drivers blocking traffic for five minutes waiting for someone they saw get into their car to actually leave. The merchants would scream, even though there is no significant turnover in the parked cars and people avoid Paia because of the gridlock. Why would they scream? Because they are dumber than a bag of hammers and fixated on the way things are NOW instead of the way they could be.

So yeah, it's frustrating sometimes, but it's also great. Wonderful people in general, and great water. Lots to do every day.

The unspoken reason why the population is declining is that people get tired of tourists. You're living, they're on vacation, and they leave all dignity and basic human respect and kindness at home. Inexpert four pass K-turns blocking all lanes in traffic are the least of it. I see ten thoughtless things a day done by tourists. I can't imagine what the folks who work in tourists industries deal with. I'd be putting X-lax in their MaiTais. I've never lived anywhere before where people will stop their car in the middle of a busy street to take a picture. Three girls did it today, standing up in their rental convertible, popping up their selfy stick and taking the standard shots--cheeks sucked in, head tilted, one leg forward. What the fuck IS that. If I had a button to push that would make them and their car teleport to the vacuum of space they would have been popping like zits.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2018, 05:10:18 PM by PonoBill »
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Rider

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2018, 05:48:10 PM »
PonoBill,  I just have to ask.  When you drop the price of you’re house by a million dollars does that mean it was overpriced, or has the market changed?

PonoBill

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2018, 12:50:41 AM »
Overpriced. By a million dollars. My wife was a little optimistic and not that ready to sell.
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Rakky

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2018, 05:48:40 PM »
i enjoy visiting Maui, as it is beautiful and has good infrastructure/roads and other benefits for being part of America, compared to a lot of Mexico or Central America - which are also valuable for the lack of roads and crowds. 
Maui is a little too wild due to the high number of tourists and especially during the peak season. 
Since the initiation of the 'illegal to text or use cell phone when crossing roads' law, has anything improved? 
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Weasels wake

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2018, 01:38:00 PM »
Speaking of Paia, here's a pic I found in one of my old w'surf mags, it's the Paia that I was accustomed to back in the day (date in the corner), but the last time I was there is was much closer to what PB described.
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surf4food

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2018, 07:58:24 AM »
This has been going on awhile, tho like you say not by very large margins.  More than anything else it’s because of the cost of living (and lack of opportunities).  It’s pretty said how people are getting priced out and the state just can seem to figure out what to do about it.

SUP Leave

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2018, 08:54:07 AM »
I believed from age 26 to 38 that I would retire on Maui, but I am 39 now and I have couched that plan. It is akin to what Ponobill has stated. The cost of living and golf is too high there, and the fishing isn't great. But what really stands out to me is that Maui government is small minded, inefficient and has an institutional dislike for the only remaining viable industry - tourism. It feels a lot like the rural counties surrounding 'pugetropolis' (Seattle-Tacoma) as they received an influx of development and money in the 90's through 2006, except in Maui it feels like the solutions to traffic, crowding, infrastructure are often wrong and the implementation is strange at best.

I am a civil engineer and moving people around and storing them is my business, so I can usually spot a project that is underfunded, NIMBY'd, or has a cheap developer from a mile away. I got a parking spot in Paia right next to the restaurant on the first pass last June. I said to my kids "Well it's all down hill from here, our luck is used up on this trip."

For us it is likely we will do 2 months per year, winter and at peak south swell season. There is no where I have been with the water activities like Maui, truly unique and gorgeous. Like the article said, I just live my normal life except surf every day when in Maui. 

It is hard to beat the PNW for availability of outdoor recreation close at hand. If you like seafood and Asian influence there is no place better to find quality food on every corner. In the running is South Texas. Great fishing and some decent golf and there is surf available at least half the time but I think I would have to bring back wind/kite if I moved down there.

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PonoBill

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2018, 11:49:47 AM »
It's still a fine place to retire to, and once you have the bases covered, you can live reasonably cheaply. Ponohouse is an expansive piece of property, unmatched view, private, quiet, acres of gardens--lots of it edible. With our PV system our electric bill is less than a hundred bucks a month: No heating or cooling. We don't need it. Our house is comfortable all the time. We don't water our gardens except for the peak of summer, and then it's rare. When we tell people what our yearly expenses are (including gardener and housekeeper and property tax and maintenance but no mortgage) they don't believe us.  That's not the case on the south or west side. Upcountry is great. Beautiful, spectacular views, easy to garden, nice neighborhoods. Might need heat in the evening, though just putting on what we'd consider fall clothes in the PNW is more than enough.

And we could be growing a lot more food with minimal effort. The basics are cheap, especially with Costco, if you cook and eat at home. Eating out is expensive but not crazy.

It's a lot different if you're trying to work and raise a family here. That is where I suspect the exodus lies. It's a small decline but it's probably more serious in the younger demographics. Plenty of people still retire here, and a mainland nest egg with adjusted expectations goes pretty far. But just as I wouldn't want to invest in a business here, I wouldn't want to work here. I'd explode with frustration at the inefficiencies and the lackadaisical notion of timeliness. I spent six hours getting my car safety inspected and registered yesterday--a yearly requirement. DMV's suck everywhere except Hood River, but not only is the Hawaiian pace glacial, the system is stupid to the point of insanity, and you have to do it every year. It clearly doesn't enhance safety--there are junkers I wouldn't drive to the dump everywhere. My truck might smell funny, but it has good brakes, safe tires, and an exhaust system that isn't filling the cabin.

It is a great place, and I really like the people. But it would be so easy to make much better, and it's not going to happen.
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covesurfer

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2018, 06:15:38 PM »

 My truck might smell funny, but it has good brakes, safe tires, and an exhaust system that isn't filling the cabin.

 

OK, it IS possible that a few people are leaving the islands due to the odor in the truck. Now that the windows sort of go down, that odor is being distributed around the island. And you thought the VOG was bad?

As for the 'safe tires', I'm pretty sure these are the same tires where one developed a bit of a pimple, which later exploded. But, yeah, they're safe enough to shuttle a downwinder. The nice thing about the truck is that it has the rope system on da racks. You nevah going fool with straps wen you get ropes.

The cost of housing is high here, but it's also gone up quite substantially in the Northwest and other places on the mainland. If you're a full time Hawaii owner/resident, you get a break on your property taxes, and pensions and Social Security are not taxed, so, for retirees, that's a big draw. The beach is pretty much free, and once you have your gear, surfing and paddling are relatively cheap, especially when you compare those sports to golf or skiing. Where we live, there's no need for heat, ever. Driving distances are relatively short and our gas consumption is pretty low. We don't need snow tires for our vehicles. If your circumstances allow, living in Hawaii doesn't have to be a financial nightmare. But, for many people, it's just too steep. Especially with a family to feed and kids to educate.

Rider

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Re: Hawaii's population is shrinking?
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2018, 07:07:10 PM »
Good comments on living on Maui.  I pretty much use the same stuff when convincing my friends that living on Maui is awesome.  Just so they keep the Ohana open for guests!....

 


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