Exclusive | Inside Californias unlikely new boomtown where homes sell for under $500K as people flee over-priced city life in droves

While Los Angeles bleeds residents and businesses, an unlikely California city is rolling out the welcome mat.Fresno, once a national punch-line thanks to Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary “The City Addicted to Crystal Meth,” is now the best place in the Golden State to start a business, a new study found, with cheap land, fast-tracked building rules and a $9 billion farm economy luring companies and coastal refugees alike.“Business owners see Fresno as the future of California due to its centralized location, affordability, and growing population.In many areas in Northern and Southern California, properties are not affordable and make it difficult to be profitable,” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer told The Post.“Fresno is also considered an attractive location due to having an available workforce, affordable housing for their employees, and great technical training schools.” The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story Republican state Assemblymember David Tangipa, who represents the city, said Fresno’s $9 billion agricultural industry is quietly driving a tech boom of their own.“We are the No.1 agriculture producing region in the world,” Tangipa said.

“That doesn’t include the restaurants, that doesn’t even include the real estate or the land value itself.“There’s a lot of tech innovation that people don’t know about — the ag industry is quite often one of the forefronts to adopting tech.There’s good opportunity both being in the tech sector and being in the agriculture sector at the same time here.

We are a big city without the big city detriment.”He said family-owned businesses are thriving in Fresno while small businesses in bigger cities shut down under high rent, exploding utility costs and red tape.He also credited the city’s busine...