A few weeks back the Guardian's Sunday paper, the Observer, published a long article titled Will California become America's first failed state? It was one of their most widely read and emailed articles that week, and generated a lot of responses. One of them was mine at Calitics.

The Guardian wanted a response to their article for their Comment is Free section of the website, and asked me to write it. The result is now available: From Golden State to failed state.

With a 700-word limit it was difficult to be more expansive than I could here at Calitics. But my article makes the basic points: the 20th century model of California, emphasizing sprawl and weighing government down with absurd, non-functional rules designed to protect that sprawl, have produced "a California that more closely resembles the world of Charles Dickens than that of the Beach Boys."

We need to craft a new vision of the California Dream for the 21st century. Go read the article to see what that would look like.