California Collapse is Inevitable
Will California become America's first failed state?
California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state government is issuing IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?
California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolizes a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory.
But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer, 2009, the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush. The crisis is so deep that Professor Kevin Starr, who has written an acclaimed history of the state, recently declared: "California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America."
Outside the Forum in Inglewood, near downtown Los Angeles, California has already failed. The scene is reminiscent of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, as crowds of impoverished citizens stand or lie aimlessly on the hot tarmac of the centre's car park. It is 10am, and most have already been here for hours. They have come for free healthcare: a travelling medical and dental clinic has set up shop in the Forum (which usually hosts rock concerts) and thousands of the poor, the uninsured and the down-on-their-luck have driven for miles to be here.
The queue began forming at 1am. By 4am, the 1,500 spaces were already full and people were being turned away. On the floor of the Forum, root-canal surgeries are taking place. People are ferried in on cushions, hauled out of decrepit cars. Sitting propped up against a lamp post, waiting for her number to be called, is Debbie Tuua, 33. It is her birthday, but she has taken a day off work to bring her elderly parents to the Forum, and they have driven through the night to get here. They wait in a car as the heat of the day begins to rise. "It is awful for them, but what choice do we have?" Tuua says. "I have no other way to get care to them."
Yet California is currently cutting healthcare, slashing the "Healthy Families" program that helped an estimated one million of its poorest children. Los Angeles now has a poverty rate of 20%. Other cities across the state, such as Fresno and Modesto, have jobless rates that rival Detroit's. In order to pass its state budget, California's government has had to agree to a deal that cuts billions of dollars from education and sacks 60,000 state employees. Some teachers have launched a hunger strike in protest. California's education system has become so poor so quickly that it is now effectively failing its future workforce. The percentage of 19-year-olds at college in the state dropped from 43% to 30% between 1996 and 2004, one of the highest falls ever recorded for any developed world economy. California's schools are ranked 47th out of 50 in the nation. Its government-issued bonds have been ranked just above "junk".
Some of the state's leading intellectuals believe this collapse is a disaster that will harm Californians for years to come. "It will take a while for this self-destructive behaviour to do its worst damage," says Robert Hass, a professor at Berkeley and a former US poet laureate, whose work has often been suffused with the imagery of the Californian way of life.
Fast forward to 2019. The state Senate has delayed until next year consideration of SB 50, which would force increased population densities on California’s communities by overruling local planning and zoning regulations. This pending state law would mandate unit densities and building heights, not only for new housing developments but also for existing residential neighborhoods.
No surprise that this proposed legislation was greeted with howls of objection by residents throughout the state.
Imagine your quiet, single-family home neighborhood transmogrified by fourplexes and towering apartment buildings throwing shadows across your yard during the day and lighting it up at night. Imagine all those new neighbors clogging your streets with traffic, and claiming every curbside for parking.
That is not the neighborhood, the community or the state you bought into, is it? So, what right do these people-packing politicians have in taking it away from you? And for what?
Their justification is based on the assumption that continual population growth is inevitable and on appeals to “moral duty.” They scold that it is immoral for us to keep what we have when so many others also want it but can’t get it. And, besides, population growth is unavoidable.
Is it?
Unless California is physically expanding and increasing its essential resources — especially fresh water — population growth cannot be infinite. There is a capacity limit at which point further numbers cannot be sustained. The closer we get to that limit, the more we seriously damage our environment and our quality of life.
Even though clever technological advances and engineering feats have stretched that limit, ultimately, they can’t eliminate it. Unrestrained population growth will overwhelm ingenuity like tsunamis overwhelm seawalls.
A state equipped for a population of around 10 million to 15 million now staggers and struggles under the weight of 40 million. The misery of driving almost anywhere, anytime, in California’s constipated traffic confirms that.
As does the water shortages, the decreasing air quality, the endemic urban expansion into wildfire-prone areas, the loss of wildlife habitats, the rolling blackouts on overburdened power grids, the toxic filth that closes our beaches after every rainstorm, maxed out landfills, the eternal waits at the DMV and other government offices, getting a doctor to see you sooner than three months out, and finding a parking place.
I’m pretty sure you can add to this list.
Notice that as population increases so do restrictions. As resources and availability get strained by increased demand, personal freedom and individual choices are limited, even prohibited.
For example, penalties, up to and including cessation of service, for exceeding water use limits are imposed. Electricity becomes a tiered expense — exceed a tier and the rate spikes. Gasoline is ever more expensive. Green lawns are now something to be ashamed of. Time limits on parking get shorter and fines for infractions get larger. You are preached at to replace your car with a bike, or to take the bus.
The denser the population, the less civil it becomes — road rage becomes vicious. Like too many rats in a cage, we start biting each other.
So, what is our “moral duty”? Is it really to sacrifice nature and further deteriorate our living conditions in order to keep cramming more people into a finite environment, or is it to recognize the reality of limits and the destructive consequences of exceeding them?
Are residents immorally selfish because they want such things as green gardens, nature, freeways that move at more than 20 mph, clean air, and quiet, uncrowded neighborhoods?onerous obligations, like SB 50 and housing quotas, to boost it.
Housing in California will never be plentiful or affordable enough for everyone who wants to live here. Building ever more housing, even with those silly “affordable unit” requirements, to satisfy demand is like leaving more sugar on the counter to satisfy ants. They will just keep coming.
There is affordable housing in America, just not everywhere. Because people want to live in a particular location does not entitle them to a home there.
And, please, don’t regurgitate that fallacious argument that an economy can only be sustained by continual population increases. If that were true, an economy would always be on the verge of collapse — awaiting the daily reports from the maternity wards.
Economic activity is mostly cyclical with repeated transactions for needed products and services — groceries, energy, health care, replacing worn-out tires, roofs, clothing, etc. It doesn’t require more people.
California’s politicians who do not confront these realities are either short-sighted, spineless or stupid. We have to continue to let them know that the state’s occupancy limit has been reached, and demand that they work toward population stabilization down to an environmentally sustainable level.
This can be done, as is evidenced by the recent report that California’s population growth fell to its lowest rate in history last year — less than one half of 1 percent. Reasons given for the sharp decline include the state’s high cost of living — especially housing costs. People are choosing to live elsewhere — and that’s a good thing.
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