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October 26, 2009

Is the State of California Finished?

John Judis, The New Republic

California is a mess, but I love it all the same--especially the Bay Area, where I lived for 15 years. I went to Berkeley in 1962--a refugee from Amherst College, which at that time was dominated by frat boys with high SAT scores. I didn't go to Berkeley to go to school, but to be a bus ride away from North Beach and the Jazz Workshop. In a broader sense, I went to California for the same reason that other émigrés had been going since the 1840s. I was knocking on the Golden Door.

Immigrants from Europe had come to America seeking happiness and a break with their unhappy pasts. But many Americans--from the '49ers of the Gold Rush to Mark Twain to a young Ronald Reagan--had gone to California to find renewal. California was part of the American frontier, but, as...

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Related Topics: budget, California

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