California, like New Jersey, has become a state that people leave, and a state where there is extreme wealth and extreme poverty. That reflects one of the worst features of America today. I don't see the resurgence. I guess that is only for people in the tech industry but, unlike the auto industry in the old days, it isn't lifting up the average person.
6
I worked in a California high school for five years. On a recent trip back, I was appalled to see the huge number of people living in tents and under tarps in various places around the Bay Area. There is so much homelessness. Terrible. How can the richest state's billionaires and politicians explain the extremes of wealth inherent there? Why aren't their consciences pricking them? I enjoyed my experience of living there, but that particular problem desperately needs resolution (yes, we have homeless where I live too, but not to the same degree).
7
California has the worst poverty percentage in the country when taking into account the very high cost of living. African-Americans have been fleeing San Francisco and Los Angeles.
But it's a great place to be rich.
Funny how that works ...
9
Having grown up outside of New York City and lived in California for 35 years (both north and south) I write now as a resident of Texas.
California's problem is the type of people who gravitated here in the second half of the 20th century. Yes, there were wealthy and talented types, entrepeneurs and visionaries, but the bulk of the people who came were people who were resentful of their upbringing and communities in other states who might charitably be called failures. Their mindset is the dominant one in modern California and one of two reasons it has essentially become a one-party quasi-socialist state beholden to unions and government employees. The other reason is the gerrymandering engineered by Phil Burton that occurred in the early 1980s, the effects of which are still with us despite the claim that drawing up of electoral districts was reformed under Governor Schwarzenegger.
The cost of living in California when I moved away in mid-2016 was very high, but even I was shocked at how much more affordable Texas is in every way. As a licensed contractor in California I was pleased to learn I didn't need a state=sanctioned license to conduct business here. When I bought a lot next door to my house with the intent to build, I was further surprised to learn that because I lived outside the city limits of my small city that I didn't need a building permit to build a new house; I only needed county approval for a septic system.
There are reasons people leave CA.
4
I live in Santa Monica. I'm supposed to think Texas if better because it isn't so expensive? Personally. I wouldn't move to Texas for any amount of money. Whatever you value, as they say. Also, and call me a scaredy cat, but I feel better in buildings that have passed inspection. In addition, wasn't the lack of planning and the willy-nilly paving over of Huston a big contributor to the damage caused by the hurricane?
13
And how nice it will be when California subsidizes the post disaster reconstruction of unregulated building, in Texas, the number 1 recipient every year!
17
Everytime that I've been to California (and I've travelled the length of the state), it felt like I was dealing with children in adult bodies.
There is something childlike about the whole place.
One thing is the constant apologizing for screwups and the general laidback "have a niiice day" phoniness.
6
I disagree. When I travelled to eastern cities for the first time, I was struck by how set-in-their-ways the many (not all) of the people were. I'm the child of two parents whose families had the gumption to leave Pittsburgh and start afresh on the coast. We, their offspring, are simply just less stuck in the mud than our eastern brethren
9
I remember being the only fat person on the street in Santa Monica, and it was rather strange. I started strutting around and flaunting it, because I felt like the only woman with a real body.
3
California shows the danger uncompromising ideology poses to democracy.
4
I'll take Jerry Brown over Donald Trump any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Too bad "Pander Bear" Bill Clinton was a better salesman in the 1992 primaries. People don't like being told the truth if it disagrees with their pre-concieved notions.
7
So does the GOP, who gave more money to churches (under Bush Jr) and don't want billionaires to pay taxes.
3
In politics, I firmly believe demography is destiny. As the country's demography changes, becoming ever more Asian, Hispanic, Black and mixed race, so the politics of the country will have to change. This is what Trump's political coalition is all about. They are fighting that demographic shift along with the cultural liberalism of the major urban metro areas populated by highly educated and affluent whites and non-whites alike. That left coalition has California, the rest of the West Coast, the Northeast and major metropolitan areas elsewhere. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the academy and a solid majority of the young both entrepreneurial and artistic are all part of that anti-Trump coalition that California is the exemplar of. 2018 and 2020 should demonstrate that demographic shift now accelerated by the right wing populism of the Trump administration and of course the polarizing figure of Donald Trump. If California is the anti-Trump, Trump is the anti-California and Trump, as far as I can see, is not the future.
He is a cultural and political anachronism. And California, broadly defined, is ready to bury him.
7
OK, but we are LESS diverse now, because the rich white people are driving us out. What happens when the poor minority left wingers are all pushed out of costly blue states, into affordable red states?
1
California is a disaster not waiting to happen, but happening. It's various unfunded liabilities total over $450 Billion and its been losing its tax base at am incredibly fast pace. Homelessness in California makes large parts of the state look like a 3rd world country like Honduras. California will soon be forced to beg the federal government for a bailout. This is what a resurgence looks like?
6
The author omits that in the years of high quality of life, i.e. 1950-1960, there were 10-15 million people in California. There are now about 40 million, 25-30 million more. The sheer size of the human population has destroyed California's quality of life.
6
Actually the skies in the 50's were smog-drenched, and much more so than today, at least in the major centers of SoCal. Although things have worsened a bit in the last 5 or so years, they are far better than the 80's or early 90's, and even then was far better than the 50's, as old photos from the L.A. Times demonstrate.
We have strong government intervention to thank for the improvement — bless you, government regulations on tailpipe emissions, and bless you, AQMD. No matter how much wrong-headed people gripe here about welfare or other nonsense, I pray for strong and truly democratic government forever!
8
As a 30+ year transplant to LA who daily experiences this once great city circling the drain (though we have a ways to go to catch up to San Francisco!), I found this article hilarious! Really, so funny. Oh, wait…this isn’t The Onion?
6
How does anyone support lawlessness?
10
Both the author and reviewer fail to mention that one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients live in California and the tax base is dependent upon fewer people every year thanks to “progressive” policies. It is remarkably naive to think that this tome couldn’t possibly have a sequel subtitled “Rise, Fall, Recovery, Fall.”
14
FACTS PLEASE .... show us the numbers
4
From the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-california-poverty-20...
I am a union member/public school teacher, and I would not live in any other state. My salary is decent, my job provides fully funded health care for myself and my wife, and I am vested in one of the few remaining defined-benefit pensions. I attribute these very real benefits to the fact that the Republicans have now largely been voted into statewide irrelevance, and can't practice their "wrecking crew" politics here, as they have done in Arizona, Oklahoma, and other red states in which teachers are striking.
I frequently tell out-of-state friends that if I didn't already live here, I'd move here. I'll be buying this book.
19
I'm in NJ, they've cut my salary, raised my taxes, and the US Supreme Court has told the gov't of NJ that they don't have to pay my pension, even as they take more out of my paycheck to pay for it.
2
This is an amazing book; lived through most of this, including the consequences and the digging out. Pastor is a great social historian and writer.
6
I have lived in SoCal for 28 years; born in downstate Illinois, childhood in western New York, teenage and college years in upper Midwest, then on to Montana for 17 years. Have kept ties in all those places; worked in economic analysis for a while so I saw firsthand the declines (Midwest), the “import substitution” consolidation in Rocky Mountain states’ cities and larger towns. California has as diversified an economy as is possible: manufacturing, agriculture, travel and tourism, creative industries, shipping. And lots and lots of innovation due to great colleges and universities. Yes, state taxes are high, but we get a good return. Yes, housing costs very high (I bought a tiny condo many years ago, and hung on to it) and that, plus homelessness is a huge problem. Yes, climate change is a reality and drought bodes ill. But California has always been a “best hope” place for all of the country. The innovators will figure it out. I love every year when the California bashing happens; then on January 1, the country watches the Rose Parade and there is a collective sigh: they wish they could live in California.
28
California native here with homes in both states. You keep the Rose Parade and the traffic, I’ll watch it on my Montana TV purchased without sales tax.
Yes California has its problems but I wouldn’t trade my life here for the last fifty years. The future is bright and the rest of the country better take notice. Especially Kansas and other red states.
30
Interesting that Fallows leaves out proposition 11, that set an example for the future of all other States.
" ..(Schwarzenegger) stumped for Proposition 11, the 2008 initiative that created a nonpartisan citizens commission to draw boundaries for California’s Legislature. Two years later, voters approved an initiative that extended the commission’s powers, enabling them to draw the lines for California’s congressional districts as well.
At the time, California politicians hated the idea of Proposition 11. Democratic legislators, who were in the majority, tried to argue that it was a right-wing power grab.
The results have been anything but as advertised.
The commission has been a resounding success. Its citizen members regard their duties with the utmost seriousness. The voters have gained new trust in their state representatives.
According to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in April 2017, a whopping 57 percent of registered voters approved of the state Legislature’s job performance — the highest level since 1988. That’s a sea change from seven years ago, when the Legislature’s approval rating was just 14 percent."
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Arnold-...
16
California is a great example of a state whose major problems begin and end with Republican administrations. It proves the axiom the rest of America should remember and learn from: Get rid of Republican charlatans and criminals, and you get rid of Republican created problems.
47
if California is the future, than this country is in very deep trouble, very deep. Outside of the cities this state looks like rural Mexico. the Latino culture of speeding giant trucks, yards clogged with rubbish, poor families working off the grid for rich whites is not the fantasy world of pilates and organic obsessed nitwits who only show up for Coachella. The political leaders are a generation of Marxist , Berkeley idiots who have never done anything in their lives but work for the government. Go to a DMV office or any other government office and you will leave in shock, its a 3rd world country out of the 60's.
26
This sounds like a typical Deep South or rural Midwest Trump voter and there are plenty of them still here who should have left years ago. I've been all over this state by car from the Mexican to the Oregon borders, coast to the inland border. I've also traveled by car through all 48 states and lived 7 years in Missouri. I was born here, live here, and may well die here.
This comment is not only so extreme in its resentful, myopic, partisan, and racist tones, it could also be said, if I stuck to the same tone, of parts of Missouri (minus the Hispanics because they're not welcome) and other parts of America that have poverty like any community of haves and have nots. How about a drive through Appalachia, dead towns of the Midwest, or trailer parks of the Deep South to see big trucks, poor families serving the local wealthy, and garbage-filled yards? Even in central Maine, right next door to my friend's charming beach-front home is a neighbor who not only hoards garbage but also dogs. And don't get me started on evangelical GOP "idiots".
As for the DMV and other government offices, yes, I visit them and I see the same slow government service I saw in red state Missouri but instead of a sea of white poverty with the occasional black who escaped the Ferguson-North county desolation, I see the hope and promise of America, the same as the author of this book; a land made great of, by, and for immigrants. No shock here, just pride, and a warm feeling of home. Please leave.
10
Were California ever to secede, this Inland Empire native would move back in a heartbeat.
7
Hmm... California is doing well now? We have more people migrating out to other states than in, and one of the highest (the highest?) tax burdens in the United States.
It's only heaven for rich liberals like James Fallows who can afford to live here.
18
New Jersey makes California look affordable, even cheap.
1
flying home for leave winter 1971 from Georgia i had until that day been baffled by the allure of California just by hearing other recruits speak of it. the plane on it's westward destinations the proceeding over the Sierra nevada mountains i finally got it. it was the first time of the flight where the ground was not covered in white. never have i forgot that revelation. at some point in the 70's prop 13 was enacted and the state has struggled since. homeowners are happy with the Prop 13 restrictions on yearly increases. putting business buildings in the same pool is what hurts this state each year. seems like this author has written a correct summation of California during my lifetime.
9
Ah..yes. The center of identity politics and illegal immigration, with the costs borne by a decreasing number of taxpayers paying outrageously high taxes. But.. the weather is great.
17
There's a lot to be said for decent weather.
16
The great weather occurs along the Pacific Coast where the Alaska or Humboldt current cools the land. Housing there comes with astronomical prices. I could not afford to live in the part of California that has good weather. I had to move inland, to San Fernando Valley. There, without the Pacific Ocean to cool us, we paid for plenty of air conditioning. Later, I moved way inland, to Nevada. My a/c bills are about the same as before but my state income tax has dropped to zero. Nada. τίποτα. Nichts. Zero point zero, with no income tax form to prepare and file.
In his first two terms as governor (1975-1983), Jerry Brown talked about an "era of limits." Now, during Brown's third and fourth terms (2011-2019), the era of limits has arrived. Taxes and housing costs are very high. Coastal California has run out of room. Perhaps, the time to leave California has arrived.
10
Better title would be Boom & Bust. That's what the state has always been built on from the gold rush to the dot com bubble to the current tech bubble. We aren't really a resistance since we vote overwhelmingly for the status quo.
5
Less than 10 years later, California still has serious problems, but over all its prospect is the envy of most other states...."
That is certainly one writers opinion. Living here as I do since 1955 (arrived from NY state) I've seen a lot of change and as I get ready to check out, I think California is history. The boom is gone, where I live, the econ forecast is -2% for the coming years. 40 million people and according to a recent article about 70 % of the nation has ONLY a HS diploma, that means in Calif , if there are 30 million adults, 21 million adults in a high-tech world earning LESS than top dollar in a state proposing a now 80 billion bullet train to nowhere. Ain't gonna happen. Sky-high rents driving people out--we have a net outmigration, already a majority Hispanic population, fires, disasters one after another, no fire-firefighting aircraft (we prefer to waste money yearly instead of investing)--I'm reminded of the phrase "cream rises to the top until it sours". That is California
m
13
What would California be today, without Silicon Valley, which has generated massive wealth and countless careers? I believe the primary engine behind the creation of the technology and this unique geographic area was Stanford University, which is a private institution and has grown in stature and resources without state aid. Perhaps the nearby University of California at Berkeley helped in some way, but it was Stanford that powered Silicon Valley. I'm not sure the sociologist-author's analysis reflects this fortuitous geography in explaining California's resurgence.
7
UC Berkeley produced the Rad Lab and Oppenheimer who helped produce the first A Bomb which ended WWII. He later regretted the bomb, and left for Princeton Inst. of Advanced Studies. While I was a student there, no one in the Physics. Dept. ever occupied his office which had a red velvet rope across the door. UC Berkeley was, and remains a flagship of California's public university system. It is now bogged down with an Administration which gobbles up funds and hires "Adjunct Professors" who are underpaid, given no benefits or chance of tenure, and lack the vetted qualifications of tenured Professors. Boalt Law School is still a fine law school, among the Top 10.
3
No mention of imports from China coming into predominantly California ports being a huge cash cow for the state and basically a tax on the rest of us...
4
Check out how much California subsidizes every other state through the federal government.
8
California is rapidly becoming the energy business laboratory for the rest of the country. The state learned decades ago that responsible demand-side stewardship, energy efficiency, and innovative offerings from the utilities would prove themselves in the market for everyone's benefit.
21
I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Pastor speak last year. His analysis of the California's twists and turns and it's role as a leading indicator for the rest of the nation was excellent. He made a particularly apt connection between the last gasp politics of Prop. 187 and Trump's appeal on a national level. Can't wait to read his book.
9
California's bigged threat right now - housing affordablility. Not "affordable" housing, but housing that people not in the top 10% can afford.
There's another generation gap brewing - property owners vs the middle income and poor. Home owners do not want the housing density necessary to bring rent and property values back into reality, because it hurts their property values. The only "reform" pushed through so far is to allow granny units, allowing property owners to earn rent on their land as well as low, Prop 13 protected property taxes. It's egregious, you can pass your protected tax values on to your children, so even your great grandchildren will pay 1950's property tax rates while earning sky high rents on that now legal granny flat. Land ownership is on its way to becoming immutable, a permanent class split. A small number of yeoman property owners vs a sea of peasants, with the nobility pulling the strings to keep things in check.
If California is going to continue to success, land and property tax reform is desperately needed. It is well on its way to swallowing us whole.
9
We are getting more density here AND much higher taxes. Oh, sorry, that's "just us."
1
As I witness more homeless, more car break-ins, a government and police force that is afraid to enact necessary policies for fear of a P.C. backlash, the word 'resurgence' doesn't come to mind here in San Francisco.
18
San Francisco will always have the Bay, the GG Bridge, views from Telegraph Hill, public murals from the '30's, the salt air which produces real sourdough bread. wonderful food and coffee, lovely old "row houses" now painted in various colors, grand old Victorians, cable cars, various neighborhoods with a history from its origins as a port city. My antecedents arrived in 1852 via a Clipper ship from Boston, around the Horn. Several generations later, I raised my daughter there. The City was never meant to house more than 750,000 people on the island it is; the high rises are product of graft, also a well known part of SF governance. They will sink and tilt on sandy clay. It is still a beloved tourist stop.
3
The word that comes to mind, not resurgence, but regurgitation as I look at the map of public defecation and disease-ridden streets in San Francisco. (You can find the map for yourself if you like by searching for "San Francisco" public defecation) Recall, please, that poverty is not so much an American product as an import.
4
Demographic destiny: in the late 1980s, California's white population dropped below 60%. It had a hard core driven by fear. They enacted the worst laws over the next 15 years. But by 2010, California's white population dropped below 50%. The hard core shrunk to powerlessness. Their victims remember which side mattered. The state turned solid blue.
America will, if the US Census is legitimately run, probably have a white population that falls below 60% in 2010. The same pattern. There's a hard core to that population driven by fear. They'll enact the worst legislation, elect the worst leaders. By 2040 or so, we'll emerge from the tunnel. Nationally, whites will drop to 50%, the Trump rump will shrink to powerlessness, and their victims will remember. Politics will change.
6
The amazing thing that no one should ever forget is that much of the transformation has occurred as a result of two factors: immigration based on family reunification and illegal "immigration" over thirty five years, compounded by the continuing lunacy of Birthright Citizenship. As one wag put it in the LA Times 10 years ago: "Mexico took over. Not with the bayonet, with the bassinet."
9
Ugh, 2040 is too long to wait. I'll be in my 80s by then. At least, I'll be in California!
2
The stereotypes of CA have been in place for a great many years, but unless you have actually lived here and lived in different parts of the state, you cannot grasp how diverse the people are.
For example, we have some of the furthest-right militia-quality folks you would ever see, although they are a distinct minority. These tend to live away from the major cities, which are heavily liberal.
I would suggest that two states, California and Kansas, can serve as good experiments in terms of governing philosophies - liberal-dominated versus conservative-dominated. Both have had a few years to see how things work out.
Yes, CA is a high-priced place to live and certainly has problems, but the climate, sound economy, and sense of tackling issues head-on still makes it
a better place to live than cheaper places.
37
Many of us former Californians have moved to other states that are cheaper. Many have moved to Texas. I am part of a large California diaspora living now happily in Nevada. You might check out what it costs to rent a moving van for leaving California compared to the cost moving into California. (Hint: traffic is heavily outbound.) People like me have voted with our feet.
1
I couldn't disagree more. The left completely owns this state's problems. The unions stranglehold over the legislature is why we are facing massive unfunded liabilities.
LA City Councilmen are paid 178k/year. That's more than a US rep. They also get a free car that's exempt from parking tickets. This is as corrupt as a state can be without being.....mexico
2
Interesting thesis. It caused me to pause and consider where resource rich Louisiana is at the end of the same period of time.
Most recently, we kept a bankruptcy petition at the ready under Jindal for LSU. Instead of an education system, we have expanded our welfare class. Louisiana has chosen to remain backward (see the election of 2016) squandering opportunities past and present.
Fallows writes: “The real secret to California’s once and future success was exactly its agreement on a social compact....to create paths upward for both those who were in the state and those who were to come.”
Louisiana’s white only social compact was an agreement to avoid the orders of desegregation through white flight “Christian” schools. Public education is neglected. The result is a workforce that cannot compete. Blacks and poor whites have gone on welfare costing the state lost wages plus the welfare programs.
Fallows writes: ““racial generation gap.” That is, a politically and economically powerful older generation, mainly white, resisted paying taxes to build schools and parks for a younger generation that was mainly nonwhite.”
Hmm? “racial generation gap?" So, Louisiana is not alone.
Fallows writes: “The result, Pastor says, was a several-decade escalation in the politics of fear, austerity and resentment…”
Again, not alone.
Is change in the air? Maybe but things aren’t always what they seem in Louisiana. It is a state of voodoo economics and black magic financing.
8
California is a weather paradise. California is very expensive also. I cannot afford to buy the home I now own. Gas is exorbitant in price. Taxes are high. I will be leaving CA within the year after 45 years here to go where home prices are a lot more reasonable so that I can cash out the equity in my home for more luxurious digs at 40% the cost of my current residence. Welcome Texas.
18
Don't let the door hit you leaving. Prices would not be so high if vast numbers of people had not moved here to take advantage of what our state has to offer, ruining it with overpopulation over the years. If you can't afford what you bought, that's your fault, not California's.
8
Just make sure that the Texas home you buy is on high ground, and it's not considered as part of a reservoir. Harvey's will be frequent.
1
The same scenario is unlikely were you to try reversing it. Thanks to the Texas legislature, Governor Abbott, and the Texas Oil and Gas Association, your property rights as a homeowner stop more or less right beneath your living room carpet. If there's gas or oil to be extracted under your "property", the "vested rights" of the industry trump your ownership.
3
I was born in CA and lived there on and off over the years. Most recently, I had a high end condo in SF just behind the Presidio where I lived for 12 years. But there came a point where I could not stand the political correctness or the high cost of housing. I escaped to WA in 2016, pay less for renting a 3BR/2BA house on a salmon-spawning creek than I did for property taxes in SF. If I never see CA or SF again, it will be too soon. CA has taken a long-term nose dive that it will not pull out of in my lifetime. Goodbye forever, California!
21
Ah. You've so completely left California behind that you took the time to read an article about it and comment. Got it.
26
That's hilarious. My sister lives in Seattle with the same liberal political correctness, tech-heavy presence, and housing crisis you decry. Issaquah's not that far from Seattle. You should have moved to the western side of the state.
2
Thank you, or Pastor, for naming the “racial generation gap.”
The phenomenon was obvious when I lived in California, but no one would name it. I think it underlies much of our political short-sightedness nationally. Appeals to think of our children and grandchildren as we make political choices fall flat if instead we have the sense that we would be benefiting mostly the children of others, instead.
5
You pay for what you get
1
For decades California has been a conservative's cautionary tale of a state with a profligate spending habit coupled with the taxes to support services demanded by its citizens. The ensuing crash and withdrawal of state services were predicted by Krugman and other economists not in the pay of one of the Koch Brother's fronts. With a 2/3 majority in the legislature required by the State's constitution required to raise California's taxes the conservative's dream of shrinking government to the point where it could be "drown in a bathtub" was in sight. On the way to that goal a glitch showed itself with a vengeance. The Republicans lost their ability to stop tax increases due to losses in the State legislature. There was a massive backlog of deferred maintenance to State infrastructure to make up and teachers were in desperate need of a salary increase. The State came out of the economic doldrums and into prosperity thanks to tax increases to pay for the catch-up costs of budget rectification. The balance of the West Coast has followed suit.
35
California should be tiring of the backslapping. Their public sector pension obligations are way underfunded and the Wall Street Journal had an article yesterday showing that California and the Virgin Islands have no reserves to pay unemployment claims when the next recession comes. And the state now has tax rates so high that most upper income people and many modest income retirees think continuously about moving. The latest data show that just 150,000 tax returns pay almost half the state's income tax.
5
Not sure what you are arguing, but constant tax increases have not helped pull NJ out of a hole. The rich write off their "horse farms" and the rest of us subsidize them.
1
California is the equivalent of the spoiled heir who starts life on third base and thinks he has hit a triple. There are a few key industries that nurture California's business-unfriendly environment and pay for all of those socialist dreams. They are slowly leaving the state in dribs and drabs and not being replaced. The 1980's first decline and come-back identified by the author was only serendipitously led by high tech IT and high tech Manufacturing and Media. Once those cash machines are driven out, then all that will remain are the subsidy driven industries like Ag and the burgeoning public service sector with no one to pay the taxes.
11
Oh pooh! As an elderly retiree I'm struggling to survive here in Sacramento. But I wouldn't go back to the flyover state of my birth for any amount of money. Money isn't everything. I'm staying put where the weather is sunny, the people are ikntelligent (mostly) and the atmospere is liberal. You naysayers, go ahead and leave. California, you're the best!
30
Real socialist countries like Norway share their resources with ALL of their people. California's tech industry is hogged up by very few beneficiaries. I just don't see that as being socialist.
2