The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.
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During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County. I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin, Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma. My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.
Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming — to such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California, for all practical purposes has ceased to exist.
On the western side of the Central Valley, the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas — which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment — have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself — from almonds to raisins — has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.
Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here.
It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?
Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on former small farms — the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don’t think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly — with suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world’s richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future?
We recently moved away from Sanger after living there for four years. The people in Fresno are wonderful, and we moved because my mom is really sick, but the political atmosphere was also a strong reason for our leaving.
Before we moved, we attended a meeting that discussed vote and voter fraud - it is rampant in the rural areas. The direction of California is designed for one thing: 55 permanent Democrat electoral votes for president.
amen. A lot of what you say rings very true to my family and me who were among the hundreds of thousands (millions?) who decided that the nice weather and geography California had to offer were just not worth the costs of living there forced upon us.
We fled San Jose about four years ago. Having lived in the central part of that city, virtually everything you say rings true to my ears.
My family moved to California when I was 7. I moved out when I was 21 and haven't lived there in the last 17 years.
I think a major regulatory problem is that there is a $ fine associated with every infraction. The Government is so money-hungry that it comes up with rules that it knows will be broken, for the sole purpose of levying fines.
It makes absolutely no sense to try and levy fines on people who have no job, no permanent address, no English skills, and no interest in following the laws/rules.
So those who are responsible get chased out and those who aren't are given a pass.
Government needs to go back to relying solely on taxes, to raise revenues. If businesses (or their owners) refuse to pay reasonable taxes, you put them out of business by locking the doors and confiscating the property, not by levying ever-increasing fines on minor infractions.
I am watching my own once upscale neighborhood surrender to the early stages of this articles description of the mid to late stages of Valufornia's downfall. Los Angeles is uncontrollable and any law enforcement agency or governing body that thinks there making a difference I feel is sadly deceived. Much of Orange County bears true testament to this article.
But I can't give up on California. Beyond question this is the greatest of these United States. I don't understand fully why it continues it's downward spiral when everyone I talk to and listen to wants to make this to be a great state.
California needs a gamechanger. I think the key we often overlook is that as Californiaians we have an identiy. A lot of the people crossing the border have that same identity our early Californians had. Pioneers, Chinese, Okies and now South and Latin Americans. If they would become Californians instead of 'lovers of that place that was so great I had to leave' then maybe things might change.
The first thing that came to mind after reading the article was the broken window theory. If government at the basic level spends its days worrying about the trivial and not the vital you are dooming that community to poverty, waste, abuse and anarchy.
Here is a simple solution to all of the problems listed in this article. End ALL Federal, State, and Local public assistance. Take ALL the money used for public assistance, and open ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ZONES which do no need to pay minimum wages and can set any wage that will attract workers, the companies do not pay Federal or State taxes, and all personal income is tax exempt. Those who need work can find it there, and the cheaply produced goods can be exported overseas.
Yes, it's tragic that some of the most beautiful land in the world is being systematically destroyed, within a generation, by the unthinking, uncaring, incompetent, and outright corrupt, but two important things have been achieved: 1) the tenets of political correctness have been scrupulously adhered to while doing it, and 2) the Democrats have an absolute lock on power. Good job guys!
amen. A lot of what you say rings very true to my family and me who were among the hundreds of thousands (millions?) who decided that the nice weather and geography California had to offer were just not worth the costs of living there forced upon us.
We fled San Jose about four years ago. Having lived in the central part of that city, virtually everything you say rings true to my ears.
I applied for educational and media-based jobs all over Fresno in the early 1990s. (I applied to be a theater professor at your Cal State Fresno.) The jobs all called for bilinguality, and after 28 months in Mexico, I spoke fluent Spanish. In every case, I was told no Anglos need apply. So I changed my name to Reinaldo Garcia. I am a fourth generation Californian who has to masquerade as a Latino.
"Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant."
This is not at all surprising to anyone who has read John Derbyshire's expose of the EFTA (Easier For Them Association). See External Link
The Oracle at Delphi spoke in riddles; Prof Hanson speaks truth in plain words, but I do not believe most Californians are listening.
The return of Jerry Brown as governor and the continued presence in office of Pelosi and Boxer are philosophy made flesh: the voting roles have been corrupted by illegal immigration, and failure to cleanse outdated voter registration records lead to fraud, all of which results in Democrat rule of the worst sort.
The wealthy enclaves of San Francsico and Los Angeles simply are not paying attention to the effects of their noblesse oblige. Not yet. But it is their pretty little lives -- OUR pretty little lives -- which will break apart when the state collapses. After 50 years here, my family is about to leave.
Unmentioned in your article though is any analysis why California, the land of such plentiful natural resources and clement weather, is so dysfunctional compared with other less-blessed states?
The answer, it seems to me, is obvious. Since it is so much easier to work and be productive here, we grew rich fast and, like flies to $#!^, in came the looters in hoards. They stay, and are able to loot still, because it is still easier to be productive in California than the rest of the country. So regardless of the flight of so many productive people to other states, many more shlubs like me stay and work, and get our pockets picked at an outrageous rate.
I would not consider you an enabler. I consider you a shmoo. For reference, do a little research on Lil Abner and what a shmoo is. It's a little creature that is extremely self-sacrificial, as in "Allow me to be your doormat!"
This account sounds eerily similar to that of the wreckage left by the failure of the 20th Century Motor Company in "Atlas Shrugged". That company failed for the same reasons that California has failed and will continue to fail.
That is a very good analogy. The entire state of California is the 20th Century Motor Company.
I can imagine Dagney and Henry driving from Colorado through the desert and into California through meth areas of Barstow, Mojave, Bakersfield, and Fresno, marveling at the once agricultural industry and its remnants, stumbling in on some old farm equipment and discovering it was all abandoned due to no one wanting to live their lives for another man.
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
I left CA in 1993. I was born there and educated there. But no fondness for the soil can replace the truth. I saw what was happening. I had suffered under the continuous application of burden after burden upon productive people and I had enough.
I do not regret having left. I am not sorry for CA. I rarely weep over sucides. CA's problems are self inflicted and correctable. But not by those in power. They have an agenda and the preservation of CA is not on it. (I must say that I am puzzled how a bankrupt, polluted, ungovernable, violent, economically and socially dislocated and civically ununified, collapsed state will serve their interest but I am sure their plan will become clear in time. I have my suspicions but I will not speculate here.)
I had simply had enough of the 'takers' abusing the 'makers.' A lifetime of economic slavery to ne'er do wells and spongers was entirely repulsive to me. A lifetime of servitude and state coerced largesse was not on my agenda.
I realized some years later when speaking with my mother that, like John Galt, I had shrugged.
