The Atlantic, in my mind, has partially taken over from The New Yorker as a source of long form journalism. While their political tendencies are almost always to the left of where I am - many of their writers post articles which make me think. Conor Friedersdorf serves as a "California" correspondent. In a July 21,2021 he wrote a piece called The California Dream is Dying which argues that California has become an ungovernable, unlivable mess. He makes a strong case. When I sent the article to my daughter , Emily, she commented that the analogy offered actually might well apply to the US. (The picture by the way is was taken at a friend's house in Monterey - he is one of those Californians who has been marvelously successful in the tech industry - he worked very hard to be able to get that place AND he provided a real benefit to tech users in the area in which he worked. But Monterey is often used as the image for California in part because of its beauty and the ruggedness of its coast.)
The first chapter of the book I am writing (Of Course It's True Except for a Couple of Lies) has a first chapter about an ancestor who came to California in 1849. But it also reflects many things about the California I grew up in. (In the 50s and 60s). It was a state that was cocky. In California the Great Exception, Carey McWilliams gave a mostly optimistic view of the state but was also credited with identifying some of the warts. In 1973, Kevin Starr, who later became a friend, began a series of books about California's intellectual history. In the initial volume, Americans and the California Dream, covered some important figures between 1850-1915. Many of the key figures Starr covered are now often forgotten and many others had lives that were more important than other places - take Jack London for instance who is probably more famous for his Klondike exploits but who lived in Sonoma county and helped to shape that area.
After the WWII the state exploited some key resources including several great universities - a dean at one (Stanford) who understood the dynamics of linking industry to an engineering school; a research institute (CalTech) which worked in a number of areas at the frontiers of knowledge and technology; a public university (UC) that was constitutionally protected and thus able to develop world class programs in a number of other areas; and a university which was one of the founders of the field of public administration (USC). Californians were, as opposed to their counterparts on the east coast more prone to accepting risk and less fearful of losing it all and then recovering. The mythology around all this infused the air.
When I was about 14 our family went to Edwards Air Force Base for Armed Forces Day and watched a series of demonstrations including one I remember still where a rose was dipped in liquid nitrogen and then broken like glass.
But then came the 8s. In 1958, the senior senator from California forced the Governor to switch their re-election bids (Knowland wanted to be governor so he forced his GOP colleague to run for the senate and both lost) and the employer community over-reached with a "right to work" initiative which was defeated by pretty stiff margins. The new governor was from San Francisco and established a political dynasty - during his time he expanded the University system, built the California Water project, and initiated a long series of other public projects. By the end of his second term, he tried to run for a third (only done once by Earl Warren) and lost to Ronald Reagan. The late 50s also brought a series of new legislators including the ascension of one Jesse Marvin Unruh who transformed the work of the legislature. One of the odd things was that Unruh and Pat Brown fought a lot.
The next 8 was 1968 - the middle of the "summer of love" in San Francisco - which was emblematic of all sorts of societal disruptions going on in society - much of that started in California. "Peace, love, dope" became a mantra for many - but there were also a series of bizarre events some of horrific proportions. By 1968 California was more balanced in its politics but the state also had a series of real nuts (one wit said it had become the "Granola" state because after you sorted out the fruits and nuts you were left with the flakes.)
In the middle period between 1968 and 1978 the state suffered through a "mystical" governor (Pat Brown's son). During that period that state began to move quickly. Several laws were passed which changed things deeply - the most important one was the ability of public employees to bargain and (now at least somewhat diminished) the ability of those same unions to force employees to fund political action committees run by the unions.
But then came 1978 and the passage of a landmark initiative which limited property taxes. The legislature fiddled with rising property taxes for about a decade and with Proposition 13 - the voters took charge. We went through a series of initiative campaigns which attempted to reset policies about taxes and a host of other issues, some failed; some didn't. Some made sense (for example indexing the income tax and eliminating the estate tax) some did not. While the GOP established a majority in the Assembly for a short period, they became increasingly irrelevant. The state benefitted from several GOP governors (Deukmejian and Wilson in particular) but the conservative side of the ledger diminished.
Beginning in the second decade of this century people began to flee the state. That resulted in two things. First, California's ranking of residents with BA and higher declined; the state is ranked 34th among the states. But as importantly 38% of the outmigrants from the state in the last decade have come from individuals earning more than $100,000 (the rate is even higher as you go further up the income scale). Los Angeles was only behind New York in the number of residents leaving the area. San Francisco, which from 1850 to 2000 had a pretty steady rise in population began to decline. With a series of odd laws the city began to experience leakage. Little wonder. With the leaders concentrating on things like eliminating the legal penalties for defecating in the street, and at least passively tolerating homeless camps, and having prosecutors fail to prosecute shop lifting for items under $900 - the civility of the place deteriorated.
California has always been a place of income and wealth divergencies. (think the Hearst Castle built in the depths of the depression). But in recent years those differences have become more stark. A good way to get an idea of these trends is to a) Drive from the Bay Area down the center of the state. Or drive in many large cities in California and travel from high income to the homeless encampments.
The trend in California, seems to have been replicated in other cities in the country. But there are some slight signs of hope. Recent statements by the mayors of San Francisco and Chicago made movement in the right direction by suggesting that some of the looney laws were about to change and that prosecutors who wanted to change laws by ignoring them would be less supported. What has not changed especially for California is the dogmatic adherence to legal structures like our NIMBY planning rules which impede construction of new housing and allow groups like the LA teacher's union to over-rule common sense on educating kids.
OF COURSE ITS TRUE - My editor has just sent me the final chapters in the book. The next steps will require some new skills. I want to have about 75 photos in the text and I will need to make sure the photos have enough pixels to be printed. I will also engage a design guy to take the text file and format it correctly. Because the book is divided into three staves (volumes) I will need to collect ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) so that each of the staves and the digital and paperback books will have one of those unique identifiers. There is (finally) light at the end of the tunnel; and I am relatively convinced it is not a train coming from the other end.
