California’s Water Crisis is Man Made

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.