California's residents have an incredible pride in their state, perhaps best represented in a way by the songs written about the state, from the Mama's and the Papa's California Dreamin' and Led Zeppelin's Goin' to California to the more recent Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. As I was sitting in Quizno's on the Alameda near my house, writing this paragraph, the song California by Phantom Planet suddenly came out of the speakers in the ceiling! That's coincidence for you.

California would have the sixth largest economy in the world as a country, calculated from 2003 gross product, just behind France. (2004 "Cal Facts") California provided 235 trillion dollars in tax revenue to the Federal Government in 2003, and received only 219 trillion back from the Fed, a relative return which has been dropping for a decade. California's industries include music, television, and movie entertainment for the rest of the country and the world, from studios mostly in the movie capital of the world, Los Angeles. It's an interesting irony that the music and movie industry is fighting a legal battle against peer-to-peer file sharing, run largely on computer hardware developed in the technology capital of the world, San Jose (the so-called "Silicon Valley", only 6 hours drive to the North. California is the most productive agricultural state in the union, producing 13% of the country's farming revenue with only 4% of the farms. (agricultural ranking) 57% of California's agriculture is generated by its "Central Valley", a collection of 18 counties (depending on where you look) in the San Joaquin valley.

I consider the three very broad regions of L.A., the Central Valley, and the Bay Area as the three loci of activity in California. Very few other states can boast the strength or diversity of output that California has. I haven't even mentioned California's juggernaut universities Stanford and University of California at Berkeley, nor California's logging industry, nor shipping industry to the Pacific Rim.

To touch on the funding disparity briefly, several web sites and web logs ("blogs") have spoken about the disparity of the federal funding provided by "blue" states to "red" states ( Red States Feed at Federal Trough , A Dichotomy in Two Colors ). California is 8th in the list of states that pay out more in taxes than they receive.

Finally, the reason this article coalesced in my mind is California's diversity and tolerance. California has a different flavor than any other state in the Union. In 1998, Hispanic immigrants made up 30% of the state's population, and Asian immigrants, 11% (The Demography of California Immigrants) , and this doesn't include growth over the last six years.

When I left Virginia, I thought I had eaten "Mexican food", and "Chinese" food. But I've learned since then to value the little authentic taquerias around my neighborhood and the real dim sum you can find within a few minutes drive. If there's a Chinese man gnawing chicken feet in the restaurant, you can at least ask for real Chinese there. (I'm not one to search out change; in my life I've found experimentation with food to yield more often a troubled tummy more than a new favorite plate. But I've taught myself that I do have to occasionally suffer disappointment in order to steadily add delights to my menu.) I have learned to cherish diversity, even if it means that I have to stretch myself sometimes and deal with my fear of the unknown.

San Francisco has an estimated 10% to 15% gay population, while Los Angeles has a large gay community of its own. It's not clear exactly what the percentages really are, partly because the U.S. Census has no clear categorization for homosexual individuals, and, even if it did, the cultural stigma associated with homosexuality would prohibit many from "outing" themselves. But California clearly has a more vocal gay population than most states. Two blocks from my house, in San Jose, the real estate office has a magazine stand with two real estate ad brochures and one magazine on gay issues.

Oddly, the states calling most for a ban on gay marriage and for the "preservation of family values" are the most likely to host divorced couples. The divorce rate per year in 1994 was only 4.3% in California, placing it at #21, the #1 least divorcing state being New Hampshire at 2.4%, and #50 being Nevada (of course). Of the 7 states that voted most for the Republican Party candidate in 2004, 6 had above-average divorce rates. ( National election results by state and The Wayback Machine's archive of Divorce Magazine's "US Divorce Statistics" )

In a country deeply divided over the issues of money, tolerance, and family values, California comes out ahead with a strong economy, a diverse and rapidly growing population, and support of both tolerance and strong families.

Last modified:
Sat Jan 22 15:40:57 PST 2005