The whole problem is building in the Santa Monica mountains.

You can greenwash this all you want but in such severely delicate ecosystems... walking basically damages the land and affects groundwater and runoff.

I get the point that part of California's economy is based off providing millionaires with fairy-tale-like homes and that people should be entitled to spending their money the way they want it to be spent. And that would be a completely valid point if the expenses of building those lifestyles didn't spill over in the entire U.S.

I certainly don't want to finance California's inability to not build million dollar homes in areas of landslides and wildfires. It is starting to cost everyone in the US. I do certainly want to help out in natural unavoidable disasters... but these are not entirely natural. And the infrastructure (roads, water, stormwater and sewer pipes) also adds to the lists of expenses with these projects. Even more so when you build on virgin land and expand the area of risk.

blah blah blah... build in long beach assholes and then we will talk.

Hi Unicorn - I had the impression California ( and a handful of other states ) subsidized the rest of the country, not the other way around. Where are you getting your figures from?

Every state of emergency cost the federal government billions of dollars in direct and indirect relief.

Also, California's economy isn't as big as people would like to believe. I say this because California is the primary destination of goods from international shipping. If you take away the entrepot-like system present in California, California's "real economy" is practically worthless.

Twenty five-ish percent of California's economy is in real estate. And most state spending has been used to subsidize those real estate practices-- California's state spending has balloon from $56 billion in 1998 to $130 billion in 2008. So, not only is real estate making the bottom line more expensive... these real estate practices place enormous amounts of risk on their economic sustainability.

You can argue that state spending also goes to a majority of welfare and education programs. But the quality of well-being and education is interrelated to place. Without investment taking place in centralized existing areas, the quality of life plummets while thinning available funding for existing areas.

Sprawl leads to duplication and under-utilized services making services more expensive and of lesser quality than centralized government services.

So, this combination of building on virgin land and building more elaborate and farther out neighborhoods erodes the government services that would be used to combat things like fires, floods, landslides and accommodating victims of such natural disasters.

Once this whole combination of retarded urban planning, inadequate government services and growing expenses becomes to burdensome for the wealth and for the "soft" economy... they'll relocate to states with 'smarter' systems of local government that can accommodate their lifestyles and businesses. Those organizations make up roughly 40% of the overall "real" and "soft" economy of California.

It's a fine line of playing the odds of risk while gambling on technology to solve innate problems that come with that variety of building.

I agree with Unicorn that California has historically been more of a drain on federal resources than vice versa.

That being said and while I agree with your general points, I wouldn't say California's economy is "worthless" without real estate or shipping.

I would like to see some links showing support for your argument that the majority of state spending goes to subsidize real estate. I mean, if you argue that the majority of state spending goes to welfare & education and that since this is "interrelated to place" than can't we argue that almost all government spending, anywhere, is going to subsidize real estate?

"Also, California's economy isn't as big as people would like to believe."

If we take out real estate (17%) & construction (4%), government spending (12%), educational & health services (18%), plus trade & transportation (16%), you've gutted about 67% out of California's economy. However, the remaining balance still leaves you with a 600 billion dollar economy, larger than every other state except for Illinois, Florida, Texas, and New York.

Also interesting to note that the economies of three of these states lack the diversification of California's economy. New York revolves around on finance, real estate, & tourism, Illinois' economy is based on transportation & finance, while Florida's growth (or lack thereof) is based on real estate & tourism, I'm wondering if you think any of these three states provides a more solid foundation for economic growth.

Texas is a real competitor to California. Unicorn, I'd be interested to know if you think low-taxes, even worse sprawl, and subsidized corporate welfare for Exxon and Conoco (thank you W.) is a good direction for the rest of our nation to head in. Texas does have a growing technology center and large aerospace & military sectors, but even here falls behind California.

Also, while I've read a lot of Mike Davis and agree that this place, especially LA, can be pretty f'd up, I think the days of endless sprawl are over. Short-term (like the next 5-10 years) I think some of what Unicorn is saying will come to pass, but longterm, after a lot of pain, people will adapt to living with more density. There's no reason why Angelino's can't move closer to already finished metro lines. Even if the expo-line takes 5-10 more years to reach the Westside, it will happen eventually. LA's sprawl was initially enabled by efficient public transport, anyway. Overtime, things can go back.

Going back to the original post. It is ridiculous that people keep building on these sites and then expecting the rest of us to give a damn when they burn down. We should have a policy of no more new construction in Malibu. When a landslide takes away a home or a fire burns down a neighborhood, than too bad. Likewise with much of orange county and the valley.