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The reform of California is a major test of the American system. California has wrecked its middle class even as it has produced plutocratic elites in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. The state has serious poverty, too—perhaps the worst in the country. That our largest state is a hopeless muddle, its infrastructure is in disarray, and its cost structure is increasingly uneconomic—this isn’t something that the rest of the country can just slough off. This is a national concern partly because the U.S. economy can’t do really well if California is sick; and partly because many of the same problems now choking California have taken root in other states as well as at the federal level.

To develop a vision and policies for moving a greater share of state transportation dollars to projects and outcomes that are more cost-effective and better aligned with environmental goals, a group of transportation advocates, experts and public officials gathered at the University of California, Los Angeles in October 2014 for a discussion sponsored by the University of California Berkeley and Los Angeles Schools of Law.

If your history of the drought doesn’t extend past April 1, you might be excused for wondering why no additional agricultural water cuts were ordered. But the governor, who has previously been referred to as “the adult in the room,” has played that role again, explaining to people that farmers have endured two years of significant, mandatory cuts in water supplies, and how those cuts have rippled across rural California – land idled, people thrown out of work, communities suffering.

California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes. 

Anticipating a seasonal spike in summertime water usage, California’s Water Resources Control Board released a modified set of proposed conservation restrictions Saturday that would take effect in June..

“. . . when Gov. Jerry Brown announced mandatory 25 percent water cuts early this month, he exempted both agricultural and environmental water use. That’s despite the fact that those sectors use a combined 90 percent of the state’s overall water in an average year, with the environment receiving the largest share, 50 percent.”

Container volumes at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach came roaring back in March, with the largest US port complex reporting a 24 percent increase in container traffic compared to March 2014.

Olsen’s bill and eight others were part of a package of proposed legislation highlighted Thursday by Assembly Republicans, laws that “will keep California at the leading edge of the modern economy,” backers said.

Our short answer is this: while the drought is affecting many Californians and communities in different ways, we currently do not expect the drought to have a significant effect on statewide economic activity or state government revenues. A recent Wall Street Journal survey reportedly showed that the vast majority of economists agree that the economic effects of the drought will either be “too small to show up” in economic data or be “small but measurable in the data.”

The drought, now in its fourth year, is by many measures the worst since the state began keeping records of temperature and precipitation in the 1800s. And with a population now close to 39 million and a thirsty, $50 billion agricultural industry, California has been affected more by this drought than by any previous one.

“Similarly, a commitment to Draconian “renewable energy” goals has helped line the pockets of Silicon Valley investors and utilities at the expense of manufacturers, Main Street businesses and households. And when it comes to new housing, the green regime has created conditions that make the purchase or rental of housing outrageously expensive. In the process, California has gone from the 25th-worst state in terms of inequality in 1970 to fourth-worst in 2013. Sure, Silicon Valley companies, flush with investment cash desperate for returns, do well, as does high-end real estate. But the historic constituents of the Democrats – minorities, the poor, the working class – have gotten only crumbs, effectively sold out by their own clueless, and often corrupt, political class.”

In the the heart of California’s drought-parched Central Valley, fruit and vegetable supplier to the nation, a water district is defying a federal order to give some endangered trout a 3.9 billion gallon water ride out to sea. And it could be the first skirmish in a much wider conflict.

“Between 1993 and 2006—normal years for precipitation—Central Valley Project allocations averaged 75% for farmers and 94% for urban users south of the Delta. (Those in the north get more in part because they aren’t affected by pumping restrictions.) During the subsequent three-year drought, agriculture was cut to 33% and cities 70% on average. Since 2012 agriculture has averaged 15% and cities 55%. Supplies for wildlife refuges were only recently curbed to 75% this year. Farmers are getting zip. . . . Farmers have adapted to this undeclared water rationing in part by fallowing land. Between 1992 and 2012, about 900,000 acres of land was removed from production, according to the USDA. More than 500,000 acres have since been fallowed. One result is double-digit unemployment across the Central Valley—11.8% in Tulare, 13.1% in Fresno, 13.2% in Merced and 14.4% in Porterville.”

The Bay Area’s prosperity is threatened by fragmentation in the public transit system: Riders and decision-makers contend with more than two dozen transit operators. Despite significant spending on building and maintaining transit — and in contrast to the crowding along some key corridors — overall ridership has not been growing in our region.

Better get used to straw-like lawns and dirty cars. Decades of neglecting California’s water infrastructure finally parched the state. On Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown ordered urban water usage cut by 25 percent.