California’s Two-Tier Economy Mirrors Great Britain’s ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ Past

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Forty years ago this month, I began a 9,000-mile tour of California, gathering data, conversations and observations about megatrends propelling the state into the next century. The result was a 14-part series in the Sacramento Bee, later published as a book titled “The New California: Facing the 21st Century.”

Dan Walters

CalMatters

Opinion

Its overall theme was that massive changes in the state’s economy — shifting from manufacturing to services and technology, coupled with equally massive cultural and ethnic changes, along with rapid population growth — were reshaping the state’s future.

I quoted two researchers, Leon Bouvier and Philip Martin, who projected California’s future as “the possible e