If you need water just move to Louisiana...We got more water than you can shake a stick at!!! Of course we also have terribly high humidity and the occasional hurricane!
Droughts have always come and gone in California. We just have to be careful how much we use during the droughts. The worst part of this state is the politics and government waste. It is a poorly run state.
I'm not actually going to be in the city if I moved. My friends live just east of the city so if I move I'll be a BART ride from the city. I love SF, if I'm just not sure how I feel about east bay.
You are all ignoring the garden spot of the good old USA. St. Louis with two major rivers...never a problem with water. Close enough to the New Madrid fault to keep us on our toes for earthquakes. Tornados and baseball size hail. Oh and random drive by shootings in all the best neighborhoods. So why go west when you can have all of that?
I lived in Southern California for 25 years. The only thing I miss is Mexican food and the chukkar hunting in the Mojave.
The drought is quite serious. We have had droughts before, including one in the late 1970s during which water was rationed. Will we run out of water? Many places do have ground water, which could be tapped for awhile. Be aware that the cost of living is more of an issue in some parts of California than water. California has twice as many craft breweries as Colorado. Link And we have over 3,000 wineries.
Per capita Colorado has you badly covered in the brewery total. So in a sense Colorado has WAY more breweries than CA. There are only like 5.3 million people in the whole state of Colorado versus 38 million in CA.
I was in the air force, stationed in Spokane, Wa when Mt. St. Helens erupted. Naturally, this was the weekend when we had the airshow. We managed to get 186 planes up & away from the base in under 2 hours.
My uncle used to live there, and yeah, not the best place, but good fishing. Good fishing is important. Mr. Shaverman, it is not like the East Bay, South Bay or Peninsula are good or bad areas. There are good and bad areas in each general region, generally more good than bad. You just have to live here a while, sort out which is which, and which locales suit your fancy. The City is really fun, always something interesting going on. There is plenty of hiking in the more rural parts of the Bay Area, such as Mount Tam, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the regional parks in the East Bay. Stoneman Park is about 25 min or so from Benicia, and has some beautiful hiking trails. Or at least it did when I used to go hang gliding there back in the day. Don't forget you are not too terribly far from the wine country in Napa and Sonoma, too. Nice places for a weekend getaway.