Klotkin is a highly respected demographer, his data are peer-review tested, and his dismal picture of CA’s future is worth considering. That he is an old-fashioned democrat critical of the triumph of looney-leftist CA politics makes him especially interesting.
He harkens back to the good old days in CA–supposedly the fifties and sixties–which upsets many who mock that period as so unhip compared to now. But the fact is that it is only in those decades that CA was the magnet for ambitious and adventuresome people and businesses from all the other states. In those decades our education system sparkled, our water and highway systems expanded, and sfr houses were priced at the national average. Klotkin documents well how all these trends have reversed. He could have added that there existed real policy debates then between the two parties, and solutions were hammered out. Now the left owns the state: governorship, Assembly, Senate, newspapers, universities, etc.
Thank goodness people can vote with their feet. They have alternatives and are exercising their choices. Klotkin explains why, and the article deserves a full read.
