Connecting California

Could the “Edge City” of Santa Rosa Become a Center of California?

A Budding Cannabis Industry, New Housing, and Better Transportation Are Expanding Its Clout

Adjust your California maps: The little dot marking Santa Rosa needs to be a lot bigger.

Dramatic changes in housing, aging, transportation, and criminal justice are altering the Golden State’s geography, and no place in California stands to benefit more than Santa Rosa.

The charms of this Sonoma County seat have been sung at least since 1875, when the legendary horticulturist Luther Burbank, who created new classics like the Shasta Daisy in his Santa Rosa garden, declared it “the chosen spot of all this earth.” In the 20th century, journalist Herb …

By Joe Mathews |

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Is California Too Exceptional to Be Part of the U.S.?

We're a Progressive Check on Red-State Power—but We Unbalance the Constitutional System

By Joe Mathews |

America is terribly polarized.

And it’s all on account of California.

The trouble is not merely that California itself is such a politically polarized place. Or that California contributes to the many …

Small and Speedy, Gonzales Is a City on the Move

With a Growing Economy, Good Schools, and a Low Crime Rate, It's Outpacing Bigger Salinas Valley Rivals

By Joe Mathews |

Here’s a nasty bit of conventional wisdom: California’s small, rural places are supposedly desperate and doomed, with few economic prospects in an era when state policy favors the urban coastal …

Let’s Make a Deal to Keep Immigrant Families Together

California Should Have the Right to Grant Legal Residency to the Undocumented

By Joe Mathews |

MEMO
To: Acting U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke and Attorney General Jeff Sessions
From: The Golden (and Still Sovereign!) State
Re: An alternative to your mass deportation of …

In California, Pro Football Is for Losers

As Big Cities Shed the NFL, Only Smaller, Poorer Cities Are Desperate Enough to Host Teams

By Joe Mathews |

No one can know for sure whether any of California’s four National Football League teams—the 49ers, Raiders, Rams, and Chargers—will emerge as big winners in the new season.

But we already …

Connect the World? The Bay Area Can’t Even Connect Its Trains

A New Light Rail System Underscores the Frustrations of California's Richest Region

By Joe Mathews |

The northern terminus of SMART, the new light rail system officially opening this weekend in the North Bay, is the Sonoma County Airport Station in Santa Rosa. But after my …


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