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1900-1960 - Progressivism: nonpartisan, largely middle-class movement emphasized infrastructure investment and business growth (Los Angeles Aqueduct, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir); 1943-1953 - Earl Warren (Republican governor) spent surplus tax revenue on roads, mental health facilities, and schools; 1958 - Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (Democrat governor) oversaw an aggressive program of public works, a rapid expansion of higher education, massive California Water Project.

1960-2000 - State shifted to a newer version; A) resulted in two separate California realities: 1) lucrative for the wealthy and for government workers (largely insulated from economic decline)  2) grim for the private-sector middle and working classes (fleeing the state); B) embraced two notions about what could sustain California’s economy: 1) inherent creativity— ‘creative economy’ would replace employment and  income of lost blue-collar jobs; 2) ‘green economy’ (energy-saving technologies).

mid-1960s - Public-sector workers, liberal lobbying organizations, and minorities demanded more and more social spending; 1966 - Ronald reagan defeated Brown; more budget-conscious - greatly reduced infrastructure spending  to meet a major budget deficit; 1975 - Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, Jr. took office; abandoned infrastructure spending due to his opposition to growth and concern for the environment; opposed new freeway construction and water projects, tried to rein in the state’s university system; 1978 - Dill Act legalized collective bargaining for public-employee unions (became the best-organized political force in California) - wanted public funds spent on inflating workers’ salaries and pensions or on expanding social services, (often provided by public employees), not on infrastructure or higher education; 1999 - Gray Davis elected governor/2003 - Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Davis in a recall election - government workers’ growing demands on the budget, green groups’ opposition to expanding physical infrastructure, and Republican opposition to tax increases made it impossible for either Davis or Schwarzenegger to expand the state’s infrastructure at a scale necessary to accommodate its growing population.

Since 1990 - State’s share of overall U.S. employment has dropped a remarkable 10% (source: Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, California Lutheran University); state economy has done well usually as result of asset inflation: 1) dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, 2) housing boom (responsible for nearly half of all jobs created earlier in decade.

1993-2007 - Bifurcated social structure: share of the state’s income that went to the top 1% of earners more than doubled, to one-quarter (8th-largest share in the country);

Since 1999 - 1) middle-class flight; 2) far steeper decline in households earning between $35,000 and $75,000 than the national average (blue-collar areas—Oakland, the eastern expanses of greater Los Angeles, and much of central California hit harder); 3) California’s overall poverty rate has been consistently higher than the national average; 2.2 million people, some 20% of the population in Los Angeles County, receive some form of public aid (source: California Lutheran University);

2000-2007 - California lost nearly 400,000 manufacturing jobs (source: Milken Institute); 

2003-2007 - California state and local government spending grew 31%, even as the state’s population grew just 5%; overall tax burden (as a % of state income) has risen to 6th-highest in the nation (source:  Tax Foundation);

2004- 2007 - Demographic consequences: 500,000 more residents left California than arrived; 2008 - net outflow reached 135,000, much of it to “dust bowl” states, like Oklahoma and Texas; 

2006 - Gov. Schwarzenegger signed Global Warming Solutions Act, first-in-the-world comprehensive program of regulatory and market mechanisms to achieve real, quantifiable, cost-effective reductions of greenhouse gases; forced any new development to meet standards for being “carbon-neutral”; required the state to reduce carbon-emissions levels by 30% between 1990 and 2020 (virtually assured that California’s energy costs will rise, may slow housing, industrial, and warehousing sectors); costs of the Act to small businesses: cut gross state product by $182 billion over the next decade and cost some 1.1 million jobs (source: “Cost of State Regulation on California Small Business”, 2009, by Sanjay Varshney, Dean of the College of Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento, and Dennis Tootelian, Professor of Marketing and Director of the Center for Small Business in the College of Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento).

2008 - California personal income fell 2.5%, the first such fall since the Great Depression, well below the 1.7% drop for the rest of the country; unemployment approaches 13%, among the highest rate in the nation.

2008-2009 - not one of California’s biggest cities outperformed such traditional laggards as New York, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia in employment growth; four cities (Los Angeles, Oakland, Santa Ana, and San Bernardino–Riverside) are near the bottom among the nation’s largest metro areas, just slightly ahead of Detroit.

2010 - A) Silicon Valley has 130,000 fewer jobs now than a decade ago, office vacancy rate above 20%; B) Los Angeles: garment factories and aerospace companies alike closing; Toyota has abandoned its Fremont plant; C) California has a lower percentage of people who moved there within the last year than any state except Michigan; D) percentage of foreign-born Californians declined for the first time in half a century (source: Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, University of Southern California);

Future - Linchpin industries to reinvigorate the private sector: agriculture, manufacturing, trade; energy (oil, along coast and in its interior); reinvestment in trade infrastructure (ports, bridges, freeways).

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Mansel G. Blackford (1977). The Politics of Business in California, 1890-1920. (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press 221 p.). California -- Economic conditions; Industries -- California -- History.

Mansel G. Blackford (1993). The Lost Dream: Businessmen and City Planning on the Pacific Coast, 1890-1920. (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 189 p.). City planning --Pacific States --History; City planning --Pacific States --Citizen participation --History; Businesspeople --Pacific States --History.

Robert Glass Cleland and Osgood Hardy (1929). March of Industry. (San Francisco, CA: Powell Publishing Company, 322 p.). Professor of History (Occidental College); Norman Bridge professor of American history (Occidental College). Industries --California; Agriculture --California; California --Economic conditions. Material progress of California; transformation from wilderness to empire-in coming of settlers, planting of fields, opening of mines, felling of forests, building of cities, operation of factories, interplay of commerce, growth of population.

Derek Hayes (2007). Historical Atlas of California, With Original Maps. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 256 p.). California --Historical geography --Maps; California --Maps --Facsimiles.

500 years of California's past from a unique visual perspective; transformation of the state from before European contact through the Gold Rush and up to the present;  maps are accompanied by a concise narrative, and by extended captions that elucidate the stories and personalities behind their creation.

John S. Hittell (1882). The Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast [comprising the rise, progress, products, present condition, and prospects of the useful arts on the western side of our continent, and some account of its resources, with elaborate treatment of manufactures; briefer consideration of commerce, transportation, agriculture, and mining; and mention of leading establishments and prominent men in various departments of business]. (San Francisco, CA: Bancroft & Co., 819 p.). Pacific Coast --Economic conditions; Pacific Coast --Commerce; Pacific Coast --Industries.

Norris Hundley, Jr. (1992). The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, 1770s-1990s. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 551 p.). Professor of American History (University of California, Los Angeles). Water-supply --California --History; California --History. How aboriginal Americans and then early Spanish and Mexican immigrants contrived to use, share the available water; how American settlers, arriving in increasing numbers after the Gold Rush, transformed California into the home of the nation's preeminent water seekers; desire to use, profit from, manipulate, control water drove people and events;  by the end of the twentieth century, a large, colorful cast of characters and communities had wheeled and dealed, built, diverted, connived its way to an entirely different statewide waterscape.

Richard Longstreth (1997). City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile, and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 504 p.). Professor of American Civilization in the Department of American Studies (George Washington University). Central business districts --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History; Retail trade --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History; Automobiles --Social aspects --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History; City and town life --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History.

Richard Longstreth (1999). The Drive-in, the Supermarket, and the Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles, 1914-1941. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 248 p.). Professor of American Civilization in the Department of American Studies (George Washington University). Retail trade --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History; Drive-in facilities --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History; Supermarkets --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History; Commercial buildings --California --Los Angeles Metropolitan Area --History. Evolution of retailing and how it has affected the urban landscape; development of  two kinds of retail space: external - devoted to the circulation and parking of automobiles on retail premises (origins of this development in the 1910s and 1920s, with the super service station and then the drive-in market); internal - introduced soon as single-story supermarket (most innovative aspect of the supermarket was how its interior was designed for high-volume turnover of a large selection of goods with a minimum of staff assistance). Los Angeles as principal center for the development of both kinds of space, during the period from the mid-1910s to the early 1940s.

Abraham Lowenthal (2009). California: Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 240 p.) Professor of International Relations (University of Southern California). Globalization -- California; Political planning -- California; California -- Commerce -- History -- 21st century; California -- Economic policy -- 21st century; California -- Politics and government -- 21st century. Country's largest population, and is its biggest producer of agricultural and manufactured goods, its main exporter and importer, and a leading center for higher education, research, the media, and philanthropy. Its population is the most international; more than a quarter of the state's residents were born in another country; how the citizens of a state with the dimensions and power of a nation are affected by international trends, and what they can do to identify and promote their own interests in a rapidly changing world - globalization, trade, and infrastructure to immigration, environmental pollution, climate change, and California's ties with neighboring Mexico and the dynamic Asian economies; need to think strategically and act effectively to gain as much as possible from international engagement while managing its risks and costs. They need to build "cosmopolitan capacity" to understand and respond to global challenges and opportunities.

(Metropolitan Water District), Steven P. Erie; with the assistance of Harold Brackman (2006). Beyond Chinatown: The Metropolitan Water District, Growth, and the Environment in Southern California. (Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press. 364 p.). Professor of Political Science and Director of the Urban Studies and Planning Program (University of California, San Diego). Sustainable development --California, Southern; Environmental policy --California, Southern Water-supply --California, Southern; Metropolitan areas --California, Southern. Story of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD)—one of world’s largest, most important public water agencies, its role in building world’s 8th largest economy in semi-desert; unheralded regional institution, entrepreneurial public leadership, pioneering policymaking; great regional experiment - from obscure 1920s-era origins, through Colorado River Aqueduct and State Water Projects, to drought management, water quality, environmental stewardship, post-9/11 supply security; navigation of recent epic water battles: San Diego’s combative quest for water independence from MWD and L.A.; lingering conflicts over Colorado River, northern California’s fragile Bay-Delta ecosystem; myriad challenges posed by water markets, privatization, water transfers; Integrated Resources Plan - global model for water-resources planning and management, water supply diversification and reliability, affordability, environmental sustainability.

Carey McWilliams;; foreword by Lewis H. Lapham (1999). California, the Great Exception. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,   p. [orig. pub. 1949]). Editor of The Nation (1955-1975). California--miscellanea. California at the end of its first one hundred years--its history, population, politics, agriculture, and social concerns; reasons for the prodigious growth and productivity that have characterized California since the Gold Rush - vitality of the new citizens who had come from all over the world to populate the state in a very short time, ow brutally the new Californians dealt with "the Indian problem," the water problem, and the need for migrant labor to facilitate California's massive and highly profitable agricultural industry.

Gerald D. Nash (1990). The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War. (Lincoln, NE : University of Nebraska Press, 304 p.). World War, 1939-1945 --Economic aspects --West (U.S.); World War, 1939-1945 --Social aspects --West (U.S.).

Marc Reisner (2003). A Dangerous Place: California’s Unsettling Fate. (New York, NY, Pantheon Books, 181 p.). Disasters --California --Forecasting; California --History; California --Social conditions; California --Environmental conditions. California’s improbable history, rise from largely desert land to most populated state in nation, fueled by economic engine more productive than all of Africa; last great desert civilization denied its own inescapable fate; Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay areas sit astride two of most violently seismic zones on planet; earthquakes - prologues to future cataclysm that will result in destruction of such magnitude that only recourse will be to rebuild from ground up.

Bob Shallit; pictorial research by Stuart Kentor (1989). California: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit. (Northridge, CA, Windsor Publications, 374 p. Entrepreneurship --California --History; Feinsilber, Pamela; California --Economic conditions; California --Commerce --History; California --Economic conditions --Pictorial works. "Produced in cooperation with the California Chamber of Commerce."

Kevin Starr (2009). Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 576 p.). Final in descriptive history in seven-volume history of a single American state: demography, water, freeways, politics, culture, the state's major cities, race relations; sketches of many of California's often larger-than-life individuals (Buffy Chandler, Cardinal McIntyre, Pat Brown, Dave Brubeck, Clark Kerr, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Herb Caen).

Theodore Strong VanDyke (1890). Millionaires of a Day: An Inside History of the Great Southern California "Boom." (Charleston, SC: Bibliolife, 208 p. [orig. pub. 1890]). Real property --California; California, Southern --Economic conditions; California, Southern --History.