ELGL continues to expand in California. With this expansion, we are developing more original content relevant to the local government arena in California. Stephen Harding leads us off by writing about the recent initiative to split California into six separate states.
Stephen has served as the City Manager of the Cities of Murrieta and Jurupa Valley, President of the City of San Diego’s Southeastern Development Corporation, Deputy City Manager of the City of Santa Ana, and Executive Director of the City of Santa Ana’s Redevelopment Agency and Housing Authority.
Part I: Making Civic Sense of California — Six or Otherwise
By Stephen Harding – LinkedIn
“One of the major challenges facing California in the new century is how to make a whole out of the sum of its parts.”
Mark Baldassare, Public Policy Institute of California
How do Californians make California whole out of the sum of its parts? Yet how do we define whole? What are the parts? For that matter, what constitutes California and who actually are Californians? It would seem that the answer to each of these questions depends upon who is asking, from what venue, which vantage point, and what place in time. From this we may begin to understand the impetus behind the citizen initiative designed to split California into six separate states.
By the Numbers
Kevin Starr, the iconic California historian, has called the country’s 31st state a global commonwealth, a nation-state. Physically it is the third largest state among the 50 comprising nearly 163,700 square miles, 840 miles of coastline, while offering every type of climatic region other than, ironically, tropical. Demographically, it is home to more than 38.8 million people with over 12% of the nation living in the Golden State. One tenth of California’s population lives in the City of Los Angeles alone. It is one of only two states with more Latinos (39%) than whites (38.8%). It is second only to Hawaii in the percentage of ethnic Asians. California more than doubles the national average of foreign-born residents and those that speak a language other than English at home. Household profiles now include a greater number of individuals living alone than in a home occupied by two-adults, one and half children, and a minivan in the driveway. The female head-of-household structure is growing as are the number of adult children living with their parents.
California has some of the highest concentrations of per-capita incomes in the country. It also has the highest percentage of the nation’s population living at or below the poverty line when considering the cost of housing by geographic location. Financial capital and individual wealth are primarily located along it’s coastal metropolitan regions while the highest levels of poverty and unemployment are mostly evidenced in many of the older inner ring suburbs, newer exurbs, and the more rural and agricultural reaches of northern, central and the southeastern portions of the State. Through self-selected or externally induced gentrification, inner-city residents no longer define concentrated poverty.
California produces a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $2.2 Trillion. When compared to sovereign nations, it is the 9th largest economy in the world. Its GDP is roughly the size of Italy’s and greater than that of Russia. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the busiest in the United States moving nearly 3 times more cargo containers than New York and New Jersey. It is home to the corporate headquarters of more Fortune 500 Companies than any state. Agriculturally, it leads the country in dairy production while more than half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables come from its farmlands. For nearly 100 years it has been able to partially write its own script by being home to the movie and entertainment industry and more recently, the center of technology in the Silicon Valley. As such, the more positive statistics end up on the economic development web pages of various governmental and business based organizations charged with marketing. The not so positive statistics are forwarded to the other governmental, non-profit, and educational institutions charged with social services and public safety.
Not in the Numbers
‘Not everything that can be counted counts” Albert Einstein
So what is missing from these numerical accounts? Demographic profiles and measurements alone can be one-dimensional and in this instance, certainly are not reflective of how California actually works, at least at the political, civic, cultural, and socio-economic levels. It is not the purpose of this series of articles to attempt to delve into the complexities of the interrelationships of individual and community based characteristics other than to acknowledge these variables exist and have a cause and effect on human activity regardless of location. Yet noting some of the primary characteristics of democracy, such as voting, politics, and the relationship between government and the governed, should shed light on the workings of California through it’s particular form of civic engagement.
Part II: Control Through Direct Democracy