Golden State loses some luster // But many hang on to the `dream'

  Richard Price;Maria Goodavage

  07/10/1992

  USA Today

  FINAL

  Page 04A

  (Copyright 1992)

  LOS ANGELES - If Philip Reaves packed his bags this weekend and ran back to

  his roots in St. Louis, most people would understand. California dreamin' isn't all

  it used to be.

  In the past three years, the 51-year-old real estate broker has witnessed three

  major earthquakes and a load of smaller ones, along with the most destructive

  fire in U.S. history, crippling drought, killer floods and pestilence from a trio of

  exotic, crop-eating flies.

  He lives in the USA's deadliest city, ravaged by gang violence. This spring, he

  shut himself inside as race riots spread in a fury of fire and death that didn't stop

  until the U.S. military imposed martial law.

  Mired in regulation and taxation, business has been crippled by recession,

  eliminating an estimated 333,000 jobs in 1991 alone. City governments flirt with

  bankruptcy. Some schools in the state university system have been refusing new

  students, worried about finding the money to educate them.

  State government, carrying an $11 billion deficit, has failed to pass a new

  budget. The resulting cash shortage has forced it to issue IOUs as the governor

  and Legislature fight over taxes and spending cuts. The state's credit rating has

  dropped from AAA to AA in just five months.

  On the horizon: the possible loss of school busing, libraries and preventive health

  care.

  That may be startling for a state that's supposed to be the nation's richest, but

  even more startling is Reaves' reaction: He never would leave. ``I'd be replaced

  by the next guy from the Midwest watching the Rose Bowl in the dead of

  winter.''

  That's a familiar refrain here, and it comes straight from the so-called California

  dream, vaguely understood in the U.S. culture as part paradise (land of eternal

  sunshine-and-surf) and part opportunity (land of new beginnings).

  That dream is far from dead. People move here in droves - about 2,000 a day,

  43% from outside the nation - and tourists are still coming. Tourism is down in a

  few spots, particularly Los Angeles, but the loss is minimal compared with some

  expectations.

  ``Some people say the California dream is dead, but don't write that epitaph yet,''

  adds Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Economic Development Corporation of

  Los Angeles. ``The reality is that other places are bad, too.. . people will still

  come.''

  Maybe, but the fact that people still come is the problem. ``There are too many

  people, and we don't have policies or resources in place to handle everyone,''

  says author Marc Reisner, working on a book about California.

  In some respects, California has offered more than it can afford, from roads to

  regulations. As recently as 1982, college students could complete four years in

  the state system for a total of $300.

  Another problem: The relative income of the people moving here has been

  dropping. Welfare recipients have flooded the state, making it a case of the few

  supporting the many. That affects everything from taxes to real estate.

  ``Those who are responding to the (dream) have changed,'' says J.S. Holliday,

  author of The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience.

  ``They're poor people, people who are having a tough time in places like

  Pittsburgh or Birmingham (and foreign points). To them, California is pretty

  damned attractive.''

  Moreover, the size of the state has fractionalized its population, a process that

  has created legislative gridlock.

  Dan Walters, columnist for The Sacramento Bee, and author of The New

  California: Facing the 21st Century, says the state is becoming ``an extremely

  disparate, random group of people who have very little in common ...''

  Inevitably, although most Californians stay on, the problems have added

  marginally to an exodus that began in the 1980s, with Californians fanning out

  and stimulating growth in the wide-open spaces across the West - a process

  likely to accelerate.

  But the exodus is inevitable - and may be all for the best. Example: Bob and

  Sharon Angle moved to Idaho last week because the playgrounds that he builds

  take nine months to license in California and less than a month in Idaho. ``We'll

  miss California,'' says Sharon Angle, ``but Idaho is pretty, and we have to eat.''

  Contributing: Jonathan T. Lovitt .

  EAR CUTLINE:WHAT NOW? Robert Johnson in front of his uninsured record

  store destroyed in L.A. riots. CUTLINE:APRIL RIOTS: A businessman despairs

  as his store burns in the violence that occurred after the Rodney King beating

  verdict. CUTLINE:JUNE QUAKES: Brett Whitson tries to extricate his car from

  an earthquake-caused fissure near Yucca Valley. Two strong quakes and several

  aftershocks hit southern California recently. CUTLINE:YEAR-ROUND

  TRAFFIC: Despite a reputation for clogged freeways, some say commuting

  hassles are worse in Eastern cities.

  EAR PHOTO;color,Craig Fujii,AP;PHOTO;b/w,Lee

  Celano,Reuters;PHOTO;b/w,Gerard Burkhart,Reuters;PHOTO;b/w,John T.

  Barr,Gamma- Liaison