California ate Japan in 2024 to become the fourth largest economy in the world. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced at the beginning of this month that the population of the state increased for the second year in a row. Tourism has reached record levels because Los Angeles is preparing to enter the world scene as a host of the Summer Olympic Games 2028.
But for all this, there are growing signs that California is entering one of the most difficult periods in its history. The state confronts what many leaders and officials say are the unprecedented confluence of the forces – economic, political, social, environmental – it is about to test its long record of resistance in the face of disaster, natural and otherwise.
These figures of the population may prove to be a miracle. Analysts say that the state’s population could decline well due to fires that have erased more than 6,000 houses in the Los Angeles immigration and the intervention of Trump’s administration in Los Angeles. Many young people move to other states to escape the lack of housing and leave a aging population in a state that has long been a symbol of youth and energy.
Los Angeles, Economic Motor for State, is struggling with a budget of $ 1 billion Shortcomings before the challenge of reconstruction from fires and potential economic outflows of preparation for the Olympics. Like San Francisco, he is fighting for homeless epidemic on his sidewalks and business neighborhoods that were released by Covid’s pandemies.
And at a time when the state is more vulnerable and desperate for federal aid for fires, it seems that California can look for Washington for help. President Trump was much more antagonistic to the state than in the first term.
“California emerged from a large recession when it was declared a broken, non -governmental state, as the fifth largest economy in the world,” said Miriam Pawel, author who wrote considerably about California history and politics. “This means that California has never met this kind of enemy relationship from the federal government, creating a huge degree of uncertainty.”
From the Golden Fever of 1848, California is an American beacon of reinvention, creativity and opportunity. With his rich natural sources, wealth and beauty, he was driven by a disaster after disaster: the collapse of defense and the air economy at the end of the 80s, the Loma Priet earthquake in San Francisco in 1989, the Los Angeles riots in 1992.
For all signs of problems, some California leaders say they remain optimistic.
“We have problems, we have challenges,” said Gray Davis, Democrat, who served as a Governor of California from 1999 to 2003. “We can overcome them. We will see it in the next few years.
Jerry Brown, a Democrat, which served twice as a California governor, said in the media for a long time skeptical about stories that claim that the best days in California are behind it. “I remember an article from Look magazine that talked about the same thing when my father was a governor,” he told Brown, who was a governor between 1959 and 1967.
Yet Jerry Brown also said that the coming months and years would be difficult, marked by budget deficits, higher taxes, battles with Trump administration and climate change.
“I think California’s wealth will allow basic and lasting resistance,” Brown said. “There will be cut -outs in La and many places. The point is that it is such a rich state that there is a lot of space that could adapt. But many people get hurt during the process.”
James Gallagher, a Republican leader of the State Assembly and the California farmer of the sixth generation, said that the conditions in the state were as desperate as he remembered.
“Look, I’m a California optimist,” Mr. Gallagher said. “I believe we can turn it.
At this point, the political leadership of the state finds itself at the intersection. Over the next two years, the new Governor-Pan Newsom will be forbidden by term limits in search of re-election-and what is likely to be a hard fought race that will be determined by another mayor in Los Angeles after Karen Bass. The mayor of Bass is facing voters frustrated by her reaction to fires. And Mr. Newsom rooted his own party members when he turned from the deployment of Trump’s administration to public criticism of the democrats and the invitation of Trump’s supporters to appear on his podcast.
The Democrats here, like members of the party across the country, are in the battle of the future direction of the party, in the middle of evidence that he lost some voters by pulling out positions that were too far left. Mr. Trump lost California in the presidential election in 2024 but had a relatively A strong performance in the part of the statewon 10 districts Joseph R. Biden Jr. He carried in 2020.
“We definitely have to get back magic,” said Donna Bojarsky, a long -time civic leader and democratic activist. “It’s not helpless, but it’s Sisyphean. California has special challenges at the moment. It’s different from what we have faced before.”
Pete Wilson, a Republican, was a governor between 1991 and 1999, a tenure that included the end of the aerospace collapse and a large earthquake. He said that the state now seems to be in a much harder form and points to growing homelessness and fighting public schools.
“Now it’s much worse than it was, and then it was quite bad,” Mr. Wilson said. “If things don’t change, I’m not optimistic.”
Even before the January fires, California with high housing and taxes became an increasingly expensive place to live, especially for younger and lower incomes. Juan Reyes, who owns a metal recycling, said he and his wife would hardly afford to rent for his apartment Monterey Park. He said they were considering a transition back to Mexico, where Mr. Reyes emigrated more than 30 years ago.
“The truth is that you can no longer live in California,” said Mr. Reyes in Spanish while sitting on a bench in East Los Angeles. “Some time ago one could afford to live here. Everything was cheap.”
But across the city in Grove, a luxurious shopping center, confidence in the future of the state was.
“Good bones are good bones and California has good bones,” said Shem Bitterman, 65 -year -old screenwriter.
The biggest difference today compared to the difficult chapters of California since its foundation in 1850, the presence of a president who expressed hostility against the state. Mr. Trump and Washington Republicans tried to reveal signature policies and projects in California for automotive emissions, electric vehicles, high -speed rail and water and forest management.
When in January 1994 the earthquake in Northridge destroyed parts of Los Angeles, leading to 60 deaths and $ 40 billion, President Bill Clinton, Democrat, included federal resources and financial assistance from the earliest hours of the disaster. At that time, Governor was Mr. Wilson, a Republican.
Mr Trump, on the other hand, said he would consider providing emergency assistance in California only if the state bowed to the list of requirementsIncluding the implementation of voter ID requirements and changes in the way he managed the state supply of water.
“There was a competition between our administration and the White House who could do the most for LA,” said Bill Whalen, Mr. Wilson’s speech at the time that is now a senior of the conservative Think tank, Hoover Institution at the University of Stanford. “Clinton’s political default settings were:” I can’t do enough for this state because I want these votes in 1996. “
Mr. Newsom, who is considering the president’s run when his term of office as a governor has ended in recent days, has tried to push back to the idea of fighting California. When the state announced that its population increased by 108 000 in 2024, Mr. Newsom was promoted as remedial concepts – asserted Republicans – that people are fleeing from California.
Demographers raised concerns about population trends, before fires. Almost 200,000 Californians aged 20 and 29 have left the state between 2020 and 2023. In recent years, film and television producers have headed to other countries and nations that have been drawn by lower costs and tax relief. By one number 180,000 jobs in HollywoodThe industry that has long helped to define California has disappeared in the last three years.
Mr. Newsom boasted about new new issues of tourism last year, but said that the number of international visitors this year has already begun to fall due to tariffs, immigration limits and more and more full relationship between Mr. Trump and foreign governments. The state is now reflecting the reduction in international tourism by 9.2 percent next year.
Fires in January in the Pacific Palisades and Altaden hit the housing market, which has already rolled from high prices and shortages. Civil servants said that it seemed inevitable that some insurance companies were released from the housing market – they make it difficult to build a home or get a mortgage – while others raise high rates.
Mr. Brown was one of the largest California boosters for almost half a century. In an interview last week, he said that he remains confident today about the future of the state, as when he saw an article by the Look magazine on California suffering when his father was a governor.
“In California, things are moving and changing,” he said. “We lost aerospace, but we got Silicon Valley. California is still a force.”
Orlando Mayorquin He contributed from Los Angeles.
