Hello again, I'm Warren Alney. California boasts the world's sixth largest economy, maybe the fifth, depending on who's counting. That's at the moment. But the golden state has been up and it has very much been down. After decades of extraordinary prosperity, it sunk into

an abyss. Less than 10 years ago, historian Kevin Starr said it was on the verge of becoming

the first failed state in America. Looking at that history and speculating about the future,

Manuel Pastor says California is America fast forward.

He is a professor at USC. He's a prolific author and his latest book is State of Resistance.

Welcome to our podcast.

Glad to be with you.

We're going to be talking about resistance and we're going to be talking about how California

is America fast forward.

But let's begin with the history.

Tell us about the days of Earl Warren and Pat Brown, the governors of different parties,

Republican and Democratic consecutively, and what they meant for the state?

You know, in the book, we try to start by asking the question,

when did California work?

And it's arguable that California worked well in the 50s and the 60s.

There were all sorts of problems with racial segregation and discrimination in labor markets, et cetera.

But there was also a sense of a place of abundant opportunity and real possibilities for people

to realize their dreams and attain some degree of mobility and their own little piece of the

California dream.

And a lot of that had to do with the groundwork that was laid by Earl Warren and

Governor Pat Brown.

And that was a sense of investment in the future.

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