CALIFORNIA: GROWING UP AND DOWN : The Problem of People Becoming the Problem

When did California start going to hell? Is it too late to do anything about it?

Boosters would challenge the premise that the Golden State is headed pell-mell downhill. They cite impressive statistics, always headed by the fact that gross output makes California the world’s seventh-largest economy. But there is no question that California has changed dramatically in the past 20 years--for the better in some ways, too often for the worse. As a result, the state is ill-prepared to deal with challenges of the 1990s, let alone challenges of the 21st Century.

This is a major departure for a generation of Californians who grew up here or moved into the state following World War II. During the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, California planned for a growth that was inevitable during the postwar economic boom. The state seemed to have a unity of purpose, a willingness to accept and deal with the waves of newcomers attra c ted by California’s economic opportunity, its weather and natural beauty--and its tolerance for diverse cultures, beliefs or life styles.

California took its knocks for its weirdos and weird trends. But Californians took collective pride, as well, in the quality of services provided at all levels of government and in pioneering efforts to protect the environment. The administrations of Govs. Earl Warren, Goodwin J. Knight and Edmund G. Brown Sr. invested in the public facilities and institutions needed, not just to cope with the extraordinary growth but to make living in California a special experience.

The political leaders enlisted the best minds and energies of the business and academic communities. They persuaded and cajoled people to form the coalitions needed to achieve action for the common good and to assemble the fiscal resources required. Then they went to the public to debate the issues and win support for programs. The solutions were not always the best, as seen through hindsight, but the job got done.

This alliance of visionary leadership launched California’s postwar public education system, freeways, water projects, parks, libraries, sewers, health facilities, social services and all the others that made California not just the biggest state, but arguably the best, the national trend-setter.

California did become a high-tax state--but a wealthy one--and there was no question that the public got its money’s worth.

Government at all levels was a model for the nation. Under then-Assembly Speaker Jesse M. Unruh, the state Legislature developed the staffing and expertise needed to liberate itself from the dominance by lobbyists that once made Sacramento a laughingstock. There was contention and partisan bickering on many issues but major state problems were met and solved in bipartisan coalitions forged by strong leadership.

Today, however, the state has lost its unity and collective commitment to excellence. No longer can California move into the future confident of its ability to remain on top of problems. For all its wealth and talent, California cannot assure residents that the economy and quality of life will be better in the 21st Century than it is now--or even as good.

The state no longer builds new freeways, but struggles just to patch the holes in an aging, overwhelmed system. Public transportation is mocked and neglected. Public schools slipped into mediocrity. A model mental-health system disintegrated. Public works fell into disrepair. Library and museum hours are cut back.

Even the state gemstone, the University of California system, was forced to weather 16 years of fiscal starvation and political attack. Somehow, UC has survived as one of the world’s eminent public universities.

In spite of gains made in environmental protection, air pollution worsens throughout California. Waste disposal problems are reaching crisis proportions. Water supplies are contaminated. Helter-skelter development is consuming farmlands and unspoiled areas of great scenic, natural value. Coastal protection is under constant attack, not just from developers but from the governor’s office.

The most potent political movement in California today is organized loosely against growth. This can become positive if it matures into a true statewide planning effort. But so far it is too limited to pockets of affluence trying to build fences around their own turf. The result is to force new development into those regions least able to deal with it.

So when did California start going to hell, and why? This is a personal and subjective judgment, but one benchmark might be July, 1964, when California declared national supremacy in population--18 million residents to 17.9 million for New York state. A time of great celebration, but victory in the population game held seeds of troubles ahead. Bigger was not necessarily better.

Population alone has presented California with problems that now threaten to overwhelm the state. Since mid-1964, California has grown to 27 million residents and there is no letup in sight. Yet the state attempts to serve people with an institutional system that is basically unchanged in concept or scope from 1964.

No longer does California benefit from consensus politics concerned with the future and the common good. Rather, the political system has degenerated into tribal units battling to defend their own narrow constituencies and to promote their own political futures. The politics of confrontation and stalemate now reign, with an inordinate amount of officials’ time consumed by fund-raising for obscenely expensive election campaigns.

California business leaders no longer rally collectively at the forefront of policy development and the generation of public support for constructive programs. Many of them may be nervous about getting caught in the political cross fire so prevalent at all levels of government. Who could blame them? In Sacramento, the governor and the legislative leadership barely talk to each other.

The passage of Proposition 13 and Proposition 4, the property-tax and spending-limit initiatives, revolutionized the relationships and outlooks of state and local governments and crippled their abilities to serve general needs. Post-Proposition 13 California is fracturing into fiefdoms of privatized service areas where the rich can pay and be served and the poor cannot--and are not.

There is a critical shortage of leadership willing to look beyond today and daring enough to gamble on the investments and sacrifices required to assure an adequate future, let alone a bright one.

California has emerged from adolescence, a period when it could absorb virtually any level of growth without long-lasting damage. Now the state has outgrown that comfort; it cannot blindly shuttle new growth here and there without major adverse consequences. Population demand has overtaxed the state’s natural resources and threatens to bring about haphazard exploitation of unspoiled regions that should be left as heritage and investment for 21st-Century California.

The answer is not banning growth. That is impossible. There is still time for California to deal effectively with many of these issues before they reach crisis point.

The private sector must become involved again in the public policy debate, out of self-interest if nothing else. The business climate may seem healthy now but it cannot be sustained if air pollution continues to worsen, if schools are second-rate, if parks are seedy and overrun, if freeway traffic comes to a halt, and, above all, if demagogic and self-styled populist politicians continue to con the people into thinking they can have services without paying taxes.

Progress is not measured just in economic terms. Californians can hardly claim to be overtaxed now that the state ranks 12th in per-capita taxation. Critics cannot blame California’s problems on recent waves of Latino and Asian immigrants; immigration always has been a source of new energy and ideas. Environmental regulation cannot be made a scapegoat. California can remain strong only by husbanding remaining natural resources, not by exploiting them.

The new problems do not lend themselves to simple, comprehensive solutions as in the past. There can be no massive new dams and aqueducts, no sprawling new freeway networks, no proliferation of new campuses. Solutions of the ‘90swill be intricate, incremental and frustrating--requiring compromise and sacrifice--without great potential for political credit. The catalyst must be strong, effective government. Government is the only mechanism allowing all of society to work for the benefit of the whole, and for the future of California. That is its purpose. To satisfy that purpose, California must have energetic and idealistic political leadership alerting the people to the gravity of the challenge ahead, challenging them to mobilize an effective response.