California bleeding: how the dream turned sour in the Golden State

http://www.smh.com.au/world/california-bleeding-how-the-dream-turned-sour-in-the-golden-state-20091225-lf1s.html
The economy is reeling and there is a gaping hole in the budget, writes Anne Davies.CALIFORNIA usually conjures up images of Hollywood, cosmetically enhanced beach babes, Silicon Valley, sports cars and expensive real estate.But in the past two years the Golden State has made news, not for its entrepreneurs and excess, but for scenes of poverty, riots and deprivation.In March the Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, announced that state fairgrounds in the capital, Sacramento, would be opened up to the homeless after an impromptu tent city sprang up in the shadow of the city centre.El Centro, a town near the Mexican border, enjoys the dubious reputation of having the highest unemployment rate in the nation: just over 25 per cent.In November students staged rowdy sit-ins at campuses of the state-funded University of California after the university administration announced plans to raise fees by 32 per cent, or $US2500 ($2840), over two years, to meet budget shortfalls.And prison canteens and gyms have been turned into seas of triple bunk beds as authorities struggle to accommodate 150,000 prisoners in 33 facilities designed to hold about 80,000.A panel of judges has ruled that to avoid breaching the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, 40,000 must be released. Mr Schwarzenegger is still devising a plan that will probably involve a smaller number of non-violent criminals being set free.The recession has hit California doubly hard. It was one of the states with the biggest bubble in house prices so there has been the inevitable bust. One in every 180 homes received a foreclosure notice in November.