This diary originally started as a comment to another diary which I shall not link to. That diary pointed out some of the budget problems facing our state, and there's no doubt, we do have some problems in that respect.
But the conclusion was essentially a "chicken-little gloom-and-doom everyone leave California right now" sentiment that evoked in me a visceral anger. And as I started to write out a comment defending the state, I realized how much easier it is to point out what's so right about California and letting it speak for itself.
And so here's a little taste of California for your enjoyment.
I've lived in various places in my life: Wisconsin, Florida, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, and now San Francisco. I first moved to Palm Springs in the middle of high school.
After that, I had the amazing privilege of attending UCLA, one of the nation's top public research universities. I had to work full-time while attending to help afford it, but thanks to the fact that I was a California resident, it was affordable enough for me to make it through.
Here's UCLA:
After graduating from UCLA, I found a job up in San Francisco in 2003 that was at a company I really liked. Though I was a minimum wage intern, I worked myself up the ladder and I have my own apartment in SF.
This state has provided me with all the opportunities I ever could have imagined: in other words, it lived up to the American dream for me, while at the same time being an incredibly tolerant and vibrant place to live.
Our budget problem is bad, but we in California have lived through much bigger problems, and we've always come out on top.
We're not afraid to try bold action to address problems like our environment. That's why back in November, we passed Proposition 1-A, which will result in a high-speed rail system being built to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, and will serve as a role model for other areas, including a proposed Midwest rail travel corridor. This is what ours will look like:
California has often been a home of entrepreneurial innovation, including in the digital age. This includes companies like Google, Apple, Yahoo!, and Facebook, as well as a bevy of startups.
You want to talk about the American dream? How about a couple nerds from Stanford building billion dollar companies that have revolutionized the world and were instrumental in the greatest democratization of information the world has ever known?
But it's not just geeky software engineers (like me) who are innovating in California.
Tesla Motors is a California-based company that is changing the way people think about electric cars. Their Roadster allows you to drive more than 200 miles with each charge. It's sporty and can accelerate from zero to sixty in about four seconds. And it's sexy!
But California also has a more traditional economy with a very significant agriculture impact. The state is the world's fifth largest provider of food and agricultural commodities! This includes milk, our number one product, helping to make California the leading dairy state.
Additionally, the state of California has helped the United States make a name for itself with the wine it produces in the gorgeous Napa Valley.
Of course, one of the most traditional and biggest business is from tourism, bringing in tens of millions of visitors each year, a significant chunk coming from international destinations. This state is an ambassador to the world in that respect, along with the amount of culture exported by our television and movie industries.
Please don't get me wrong, people. I'm not making any statement about whether California is qualitatively better or worse than any other place. I'm just defending it after reading some pretty harsh criticisms of it on here earlier.
And so with that, I'll leave you with some of the photos I've taken over the past few years while living here.