It sounded too good to be true, and it was. Travel from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles in two hours via high-speed rail. California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 1A, authorizing $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to build this so-called “bullet train.” They were told not only that the total cost would...
If you want to know where California’s headed, dragging the rest of America in its wake, consider the $1.7 million single public toilet San Francisco is going to install in the city’s Noe Valley neighborhood. Don’t hold your breath, by the way, because if we’re lucky, the toilet will be available to the public sometime in 2025....
Even by national standards, state ballot initiative campaigns in California are big time politics. You can run a campaign for U.S. Senator in most states in America for less than it costs to qualify and successfully campaign to pass a statewide ballot initiative in California. Political insiders in Sacramento describe any controversial initiative with well...
Editor’s note: This is the second article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” Perhaps the biggest example of misguided water policy in California are the escalating restrictions on indoor water consumption....
Editor’s note: This is the first article in a series on California’s water crisis. You can read the entire series including recent updates in his new book “The Abundance Choice, Our Fight for More Water in California.” In October and again in December, as the third severe drought this century was entering its third year,...
The fallout continues to build from the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2018 ruling that government unions cannot require their employees to pay unions anything – membership dues or fees – as a condition of employment. These dues and fees have long been a key to the balance of political power in California. Government union leaders almost...
A study by the Public Policy Institute of California in 2019 found that per capita urban water use in the state has dropped consistently over the years, from 231 gallons per day in 1990 to 180 gallons per day in 2010. It dropped again to 146 gallons per day during the drought in 2015. This...
In a rare and commendable display of political courage and common sense, California Governor Gavin Newsom has been working to finally grant permits to construct a second major seawater desalination plant on the Southern California Coast. But don’t count on this new water source just yet. Despite clearing major hurdles, self-described environmentalists and their allies in the...
The Great Valley of California, variously referred to as the Central Valley, or, north of the Delta as the Sacramento Valley, and south of the Delta as the San Joaquin Valley, is one of the geographical wonders of the world. Nearly 450 miles in length and around 50 miles wide, it stretches from Redding in the...
A few years ago a provocative book by Rupert Darwall entitled “Green Tyranny” made the case that climate alarm is more about power and control, and less about the climate or the environment. Darwell’s reasoning, echoed today by a growing number of economists and environmentalists such as Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Shellenberger, concludes that environmental extremism, especially now...
When it comes to California’s political dysfunction, over and over, the story’s already been told. Failing schools, crumbling infrastructure. Highest taxes, highest unemployment, and highest cost-of-living. Hostile business climate. Crippling, punitive regulations and fees. Widest gap between rich and poor. Burning forests, lawless streets. Record numbers of homeless. Unaffordable housing. Water rationing, electricity blackouts. And...
The old line about nothing being certain except death and taxes is slightly less solid during the coronavirus recession, as lawmakers look to limit harm to struggling individuals and businesses by putting off when they have to pay their due to the government. But an old saw about the Golden State — there is nothing...
Modern urban centers around the world now have neighborhoods that house well over 100,000 people per square mile. The Choa Chu Kang district in Singapore, defined by boulevards lined with 10 to 12 story mid-rise residential buildings, has a population density of over 125,000 per square mile. The entire borough of Manhattan has an average population density of over 70,000 per square...
The American Conservative recently laid an egg. They published a misanthropic, pessimistically aggressive Malthusian screed, written by James Howard Kunstler. Kunstler’s “Why America’s Urban Dreams Went Wrong” attacks pretty much every urban amenity Americans have built since the invention of the automobile. And his reasoning, all of it, reflects a dismal lack of faith in human...