Yup, agreed. My earlier reply was my previous uninformed opinion and I no longer hold that opinion strongly. Though I also don't hold any other strong opinions on current California governance as I haven't been paying close attention and I've previously been fooled by some of the media messaging about high crime rates.

Another issue that I've been trying to understand are the delays and budget overruns in the high-speed rail project. Some people argue it was NIMBYs but isn't governance responsible for making sure NIMBYs don't become a major problem? My current understanding is that it was partially due to valid safety & environmental concerns, and partially the project looked simple but turned out to involve very complicated/hard engineering work. It's just very difficult to sell people on this argument... Glad to hear any insights, or links/books.