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Prop 13 deserves most, though not all, of the blame for California's high taxes on everything else, as well as contributing to municipal dysfunction by breaking the link between local tax bases and local government funding, was done by white conservatives. CEQA is ground zero of California NIMBYism and was bipartisan (signed by Governor Reagan), and predated the browning of the state. Local NIMBYism seems to be a bipartisan old white people thing much more than a third world immigrant thing.
So it looks like California was wrecked by Boomerism, not Third Worldification. The Asian-American vote is a powerful pro-sanity force in California politics, though mostly an isolated one.
Those policies can be viewed as pro-segregation/anti-immigration mitigation. Who does prop-13 = older and long time residents. Who does it hurt new residents. If I wanted to keep new people out of my community what would I do? I would invent higher taxes for immigrants. Which prop-13 essentially did.
Part of the argument that immigration ruins governance is that groups pass tribalistic policies. If the new residents to California trying to buy a home were just the old residents kids then you would see these policies being changed back or developing policies that would help their kids buy housing.
NIMBY policy is well within a framework of things caused by diversity because it creates voting blocks opposed to increased density because voters do not want other people living around them.
I am also not just referring to housing policy but other social dysfunction. You response reminds me of why I “Why Nations Fail” and Acemoglu getting a Nobel Prize. I believe his book basically concludes Third World Nations suck because they have bad governance/institutions …..and if we just had better governance/institutions then Africa be rich. Which sounds nice to a liberal because that sounds like you can help Africa by just importing a technology like giving them the US constitution. My view is the institutions will always be poor because you have Africans running the government.
You will always be able to point out 1 bad policy and explain why the policy is bad. Good institutions with good demographics fix bad policies. My argument would be that California sucks now because politicians have to sell to third world voters and people largely want NIMBY policies to mitigate living in a diverse society.
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