Harold Meyerson on Searching For The California Dream

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I'm in the middle of the latest House roundup, but I just wanted to highlight this great opinion piece in the Washington Post, of all places, about the crisis of California's housing market, and in a larger sense, the crisis of governmental neglect.  The most important paragraph is the last:

Half a century ago, Californians understood what it took to create a great state. Taxpayers funded the nation's best highway network, water system and public universities. The state's population exploded in the greatest home-construction boom in history, under a system of mortgages that the federal government tightly regulated. A sustainable California will require a return to the policies of public investment and financial regulation that built the postwar paradise between the Sierras and the sea.

This is quite right.  The far-sighted work of Pat Brown and others made California a destination for those who wanted to live the American dream.  Now, with mortgage meltdowns and insufficient infrastructure, those dreams are being deferred.

It's a great read, I recommend it.