California dreaming

Creating an artificial world

Back in the 1960s, I recall people saying that global trends begin in America, and American trends begin in California. That still seems true today. Indeed for more than 100 years, California has been a global trendsetter. But what exactly is the California project? Here I’ll argue that for the past century my adopted state has been engaged in creating an artificial world, a sort of Earth 2.0.

I’ve recently read a picture book entitled California Crazy, which discusses the rise of vernacular architecture in the Golden State:

The story begins with the 1915 Panama-Pacific exhibition in San Francisco. The world’s fair concept actually began with London’s Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, but the early 1900s represented a golden age for world’s fairs, with spectacular exhibitions in places like Chicago (1893), Buffalo (1901), St Louis (1904), and New York (1939). World’s fairs were still considered a big deal when I was a kid, but the 1964-65 New York exhibition was the last one with a major impact. Once innovation switched from the world of atoms to the world of electrons, there was nothing much to look at.

The grand looking buildings at these exhibitions were mostly fake, intended to look like classical marble structures, but actually consisting of plaster over flimsy wood frames. The buildings were generally torn down after the fair ended. In San Francisco, only the Palace of Arts was built to be permanent (lower right of photo):

A year later, D.W. Griffith did a massive recreation of ancient Babylon, right in Hollywood. The structure was used as a set for the epic film “Intolerance”. In those days, many film sets were built right out on the streets of LA.

Soon after, the sort of fake architecture seen at world’s fairs and in Hollywood film lots began to spread across California. The golden age of this vernacular architecture occurred during the 1920s and early 1930s, before the more streamlined and minimalist modern style took over. Building shapes were often a form of advertising, intended to catch the eye of motorists moving too fast to read signs with verbal information.

BTW, not everything was as goofy as the big donut above. This link discusses some very handsome gas stations from the 1920s (with better pictures of the Moorish style Calpet station here and here.) The California Crazy book has even better pictures of that station. (I hate how our copyright laws restrict me from embedding lots of good photos.)

California has consistently led the world in producing artificial worlds, including fake dreams (Hollywood), fake restaurants (McDonalds) and fake kingdoms (Disneyland). Gambling was illegal, so they created an artificial casino megalopolis across the state line in Nevada, a state that is essentially a suburb of California. Vegas is the most fake city in the entire world, which I guess makes it authentically American. (Even Macao has some history.)

For the first 50 years after the San Francisco exhibition, California focused on the world of atoms. Since the 1960s, the world of electrons has taken over. California has played a leading role in the creation of the integrated circuit, the personal computer, the internet, social media, virtual reality, self-driving electric vehicles, and now artificial intelligence.

Despite being only about 20% of the global economy, the US has over 60% of global stock market capitalization, and the figure has been rising over time. That’s largely due to innovations that occurred in California.

Is there any sort of unity to all of these trends? Maybe not. Back in the 1960s, California was viewed as a trend setter because of its role in cultural change—Hollywood, the hippie movement, the music scene, drugs, meditation, clothing styles, surfing, etc. In contrast, the recent dominance of the state is more due to advanced technology.

Nonetheless, one does begin to wonder how this state continues to maintain its position on the leading edge. In terms of governance, it doesn’t have a very good business environment, and indeed some leading companies like Chevron and Tesla have fled to greener (cheaper and less regulated) pastures. People have also been moving away. In the past few years, Detroit has seen more population growth than San Jose. And yet as each year goes by, California’s dominance of the global economy and culture seems to get greater, not less. Even wildfires don’t stop us. How is that possible?

I don’t know the answer, but here are a few contributing factors:

1. Innovative types want to live here. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world (especially the Bay Area), and it has a delightful climate. Its somewhat dysfunctional government is partly offset by one big advantage; much of it was built during the sweet spot of development, the mid-20th century. Urbanists hate much of this development, but the mid-20th century was a period where cities were built for the automobile. Older cities out east are less convenient to drivers. Today’s California has so much Nimbyism that hardly anything is getting built, but it has a spectacular stock of 20th century physical capital. LA County has partly outgrown its infrastructure, but Orange County is doing fine, as are San Diego and some of the outlying counties in the Bay Area. It has outstanding state universities, with many of its branch campuses being better than the flagship universities in other states.

2. Network effects: Creative types like to be around other creative types. Yes, California’s taxes are a pain, but much of the regulation is more of a problem for the older industries that deal with the world of atoms, like oil and gas, or car manufacturing. Offsetting the high taxes is the ability to work with a critical mass of other creative types, in a near utopian environment. Walk around a city like Palo Alto or Santa Monica on a nice day (which is almost every day) and you feel like you are in paradise.

3. Immigrants: The state has drawn a lot of highly creative immigrants. This directly boosts industries like Hollywood and high tech, but indirectly helps attract talent by producing spillover benefits. Thus the restaurant food is better than in other states, mostly due to the effect of immigrants.

4. Some of the negatives are wildly overstated. California has its share of crime, but it’s no worse than other big states. (A more accurate criticism is that San Francisco should have a much lower crime rate, given its demographics.) I find most of LA and San Francisco to be very pleasant places to visit, despite there being a few pockets of homeless people. The state does over-regulate the environment, but to its credit they really have dramatically reduced problems like air pollution. Water “shortages” are one of those phony problems that the press likes to pontificate about. Earthquake and wildfire risks (to human life) are no worse than hurricane and tornado risks out east.

So where is all this headed? Over the course of my life, the world has seemed to become increasingly artificial. Compared to my childhood, my daughter spent far less time outdoors, hanging out with friends. Indoor activities including the use of social media play a much bigger role in the lives of young people today. Even their tolerance for “filthy” conditions is much less than the society I grew up in, which was only a couple generations from the farm.

California innovations such as AI are poised to make the world even more artificial, with ever more realistic versions of virtual reality, servants replaced by robots, and perhaps even spouses replaced by hyper-realistic sex dolls. No doubt there are lots of innovations coming down the road that I cannot even imagine.

However it plays out, I suspect the world will wake up in 2125 thinking, “It’s California’s world, we just live in it.”

PS. This tweet caught my eye:

PPS. After completing this post, I received the sad news that David Lynch had passed away. For me, visiting this Bob’s Big Boy in 2019 was like a Christian making a pilgrimage to Lourdes. This Burbank diner is where Lynch went every day for his coffee and milk shake—the place where he worked on his film scripts. Lynch was my favorite living director.