During the mid-to-late 1970s, I paid $195/month for a one-bedroom apartment in the Bay Area and earned a whopping $7,500 per year at my full-time job. Those where the days, for sure...
-NW

The CALIFORNIA Nobody Talks About Anymore
RetroWorld
Feb 11, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ipQKD00Nic

Before the housing crisis and tech billionaires, California was something else entirely.

Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed employing tens of thousands of working-class families in the South Bay, tract homes selling for $8,000-12,000 on GI Bill loans, UC tuition under $100 per year guaranteed to any qualifying student, freeways crossing Los Angeles in 30 minutes, free beaches accessible to everyone, cheap water making green lawns standard in modest neighborhoods, surf culture born from working-class kids in Hermosa Beach, and Hollywood supporting carpenters and seamstresses with union wages, surf culture born from working-class kids in Hermosa Beach, and Hollywood supporting carpenters and seamstresses with union wages.

Then Proposition 13 in 1978 collapsed school funding, aerospace jobs disappeared after Apollo ended in 1972, and the $12,000 house became $200,000. The California dream became the California memory.