Joel Kotkin on California's Decline and Fall

From the Daily Beast comes this piece by Joel Kotkin on California's decline and fall ("The Golden State is Crumbling").  It serves is a good companion to the Victor Davis Hanson pieces that I linked to yesterday.  Hanson and Kotkin are observing the same phenomena at work:  Hanson in the Central part of the state and from a more conservative perspective and Kotkin in the Southern part and a more liberal perspective.  I find it interesting that they come to such similar conclusions,

Both commentators see the end of progress, in the usual meaning of the word.  Hanson observes the end of the great road, dam and water projects.  Kotkin identifies the proximate cause of this urge to de-civilization,

"California's dominant ruling class—consisting of public-employee unions, green jihadis, and Democratic machine politicians—has no real use for science as [former University President] Coit saw it: as a way to create prosperity for its citizens.  Instead, the prevailing credo of the state has been how to do everything possible to return to its pre-settlement condition, with little regard for what that means to the average Californian."

Kotkin's solution:  regime change.