California has spent decades trying and failing to build high-speed rail. It has the worst homelessness problem in the country. It has the worst housing affordability problem in the country. It trails only Hawaii and Massachusetts in its cost of living.21 As a result, it is losing hundreds of thousands of people every year to Texas and Arizona.22 What has gone wrong? California’s problems are often distinct in their severity but not in their structure. The same dynamics are present in other blue states and cities. In this era of rising right-wing populism,
