You mention “urban theorists”, and not a few conservatives roll their eyes and snort “…another ivory-tower wannabe slurper-at-the-public faucet”.  Not without considerable justification, mind you.

I’ll ask the conservative reader to suspend his/her instincts in re Joel Kotkin, a Stanford demographer whose demographic and economic theories acknowledge the reality that people operating in pursuit of their own enlightened self-interest will develop patterns of living and working that defy the efforts of utopian urban planners.

More – much more – on that as the next legislative session gets under way.

Kotkin’s latest big effort, from earlier this week, was in Forbes, and  covers California’s extended economic tailspin, and the rise of pro-business states like Texas, and the political currents behind both.

Perhaps you’ve heard – California is America’s Greece:

In the future, historians may likely mark the 2010 midterm elections as the end of the California era and the beginning of the Texas one. In one stunning stroke, amid a national conservative tide, California voters essentially ratified a political and regulatory regime that has left much of the state unemployed and many others looking for the exits.

California has drifted far away from the place that John Gunther described in 1946 as “the most spectacular and most diversified American state … so ripe, golden.”  Instead of a role model, California  has become a cautionary tale of mismanagement of what by all rights should be the country’s most prosperous big state. Its poverty rate is at least two points above the national average; its unemployment rate nearly three points above the national average.  On Friday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was forced yet again to call an emergency session in order to deal with the state’s enormous budget problems.

This state of crisis is likely to become the norm for the Golden State. In contrast to other hard-hit states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada, which all opted for pro-business, fiscally responsible candidates, California voters decisively handed virtually total power to a motley coalition of Democratic-machine politicians, public employee unions, green activists and rent-seeking special interests.

Exactly the sort of “solution” the DFL put before Minnesota in this past election…

In the new year, the once and again Gov. Jerry Brown, who has some conservative fiscal instincts [by Kotkin’s standards, naturally – Ed.] will be hard-pressed to convince Democratic legislators who get much of their funding from public-sector unions to trim spending. Perhaps more troubling, Brown’s own extremism on climate change policy–backed by rent-seeking Silicon Valley investors with big bets on renewable fuels–virtually assures a further tightening of a regulatory regime that will slow an economic recovery in every industry from manufacturing and agriculture to home-building.

Kotkin goes on to shred the Cali Dems’ current fairy tale – that “green jobs” will save the day.

Compare and contrast with the prototype pro-business big state, Texas:

Texas’ trajectory, however, looks quite the opposite. California was recently ranked by Chief Executive magazine as having the worst business climate in the nation, while Texas’ was considered the best. Both Democrats and Republicans in the Lone State State generally embrace the gospel of economic growth and limited public sector expenditure. The defeated Democratic candidate for governor, the brainy former Houston Mayor Bill White, enjoyed robust business support and was widely considered more competent than the easily re-elected incumbent Rick Perry, who sometimes sounds more like a neo-Confederate crank than a serious leader.

I read White’s bio and record in Houston, and I thought “what a wonderful world, Texas, where the the “lefty” candidate has not only a platform, but a record, to the right of the “Republcian” in California – or, for that matter, far enough to the right to make Lori Sturdevant and Nick Coleman yakk up their skulls”.

To be sure, Texas has its problems: a growing budget deficit, the need to expand infrastructure to service its rapid population growth and the presence of a large contingent of undereducated and uninsured poor people. But even conceding these problems, the growing chasm between the two megastates is evident in the economic and demographic numbers. Over the past decade nearly 1.5 million more people left California than stayed; only New York State lost more. In contrast, Texas gained over 800,000 new migrants. In California, foreign immigration–the one bright spot in its demography–has slowed, while that to Texas has increased markedly over the decade.

And the conclusions?

A vast difference in economic performance is driving the demographic shifts. Since 1998, California’s economy has not produced a single new net job, notes economist John Husing. Public employment has swelled, but private jobs have declined. Critically, as Texas grew its middle-income jobs by 16%, one of the highest rates in the nation, California, at 2.1% growth, ranked near the bottom. In the year ending September, Texas accounted for roughly half of all the new jobs created in the country.

I bring this up not  just to get you to read Kotkin’s whole piece – although I think you should – but to urge you to compare and contrast the competing visions facing Minnesota today.

Because Minnesotans today do face two starkly-different futures.  There’s the future presented to us by Mark Dayton, if he (heaven forfend) wins the recount, and there’s the one that the GOP majorities in both chambers have been sent to fight for.

Dayton’s vision is fundamentally the same as the one that led to Califorinia’s catastrophic decay; fat and happy public unions, high taxes, hostility to any real economy’s genuine strengths.  The GOP’s – if they do their job, and I’m here to say I’m not the only one who’s gonna make sure they do – is to shade things more toward the Texas model.

This next legislative session will see these two ideals battling like Godzilla and Mothra. 

Or maybe, given Mark Dayton’s fundamental weakness as a candidate and governor, like Godzilla and Andy Dick.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, November 19th, 2010 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Business, The Economy and The Markets, Culture War, Minnesota Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.