The Beholden State

Brian C. Anderson

doi:10.5771/9781442223448

Summary

California is at a tipping point. Severe budget deficits, unsustainable pension costs, heavy taxes, cumbersome regulation, struggling cities, and distressed public schools are but a few of the challenges that policymakers must address for the state to remain a beacon of business innovation and economic opportunity. City Journal has for years been cataloging the political and economic issues of our nation's largest metropolitan areas, and in this collection compiled and introduced by City Journal editor Brian C. Anderson, the cracks in California's flawed policy plans are displayed in detail, and analyzed by a diverse set of experts in the state's design.

While there is plenty of literature on California’s history, topography, and attractions, The Beholden State: California's Lost Promise and How to Recapture It is the first book examining in rigorous detail how a place seen just a generation ago as the dynamic engine of the American future could, through bad policy ideas, find itself with among the highest unemployment rates and poorest educational outcomes in the country. The book is as thoroughly analytical as it is pragmatically proscriptive, complete with policy solutions mapping the way forward for a struggling state.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2013
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4422-2343-1
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-2344-8
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 330
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. Foreword No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 4
1. Ch01. The Beholden State No access
2. Ch02. The Big-Spending, High-Taxing, Lousy-Services Paradigm No access
3. Ch03. The Golden State’s War on Itself No access
4. Ch04. Cali to Business: Get Out! No access
5. Ch05. The Long Stall No access
6. Ch06. The Pension Fund That Ate California No access
7. Ch07. Flatten Taxes! No access
8. Ch08. The Radical Reform That California Needs No access
1. Ch09. Lost Angeles No access
2. Ch10. How the Road to Bell Was Paved No access
3. Ch11. Broken Windows, Broken City No access
1. Ch12. A Crude Awakening No access
2. Ch13. The Water Wars No access
1. Ch14. The Reclamation of Skid Row No access
2. Ch15. The LAPD Remade No access
3. Ch16. The Sidewalks of San Francisco No access
1. Ch17. The Rainbow Coalition Evaporates No access
2. Ch18. The Demographic Revolution No access
1. Ch19. The Worst Union in America No access
2. Ch20. The Bilingual Ban That Worked No access
3. Ch21. The Union’s Occupation No access
4. Ch22. Triggering School Reform No access
5. Ch23. Grading the Teachers No access
6. Ch24. UC Two No access
1. Ch25. The Lost Art of War No access
2. Ch26. Radical Graffiti Chic No access
3. Ch27. Tom Wolfe’s California No access
1. Ch28. The Silicon Lining No access
2. Ch29. California, Here We Stay No access
Index No access Pages 313 - 328
List of Contributors No access Pages 329 - 330