cture. At its heart was the best public education system in the United States, culminating in the University of California and Cal Tech. California boasted more than a third of America's Nobel prize winners.
The Edmund Brown administration built a huge network of freeways. It raised the then astronomic sum of $1.75 billion to finance the California Water Project, which supplied the cities and irrigated arid land. It extended and consolidated the state's parks. California's public services sat proudly alongside some of the most innovative and hi-tech industries on the planet.
Incredible though it now seems, in 1960 the first language of most immigrants from outside the United States to California was English. But the waves of immigration that have since doubled its population have been from Latin America and Asia. In 1970, 78 percent of Californians were European whites. By 1996, it was 52 percent, with 30 percent Latino, 7 percent black and the rest, 11 percent, mainly Asian. By 2002 whites will become a minority.
As the population has changed, the willingness of the voters to support the state's services has declined. The Proposition 13 tax revolt of 1978 was an epochal moment in late-20th century politics, resonating far beyond California. In the state itself, however, public assets began to suffer neglect from this point. After Proposition 13, the income of California's cities, counties and schools was reduced by as much as 53 percent. This success encouraged a series of propositions. Compared with nine propositions in the 1960s, Californians have voted on 49 in the 1990s,
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