California, a Nation to Itself
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2/21/2006
California has nearly 1/6 of the US population and the only larger economies are the US itself, Japan, Germany, and 2 or 3 others (since China's geometric growth). The state has everything and everybody, offering success and tolerance. It's a land of changes and a disproportionate amount of "new" and "better" starts here. California is really several strikingly distinct topographies blended into a single state, but it could just as easily be 3:
a. LA southward is an irrigated desert with a 40 mile wide strip of coastal
heaven - warm winters with occassional showers and summers more pleasant
than Florida, but without a half-dozen destructive hurricanes yearly.
The population is about 10% East Asian and nearly 1/3 Latino.
b. Sacramento to the mountains above LA is perennial spring and early
summer. The central valley has perhaps the best farming in the world.
A dozen major cities comprise the banking, technological, services back-
bone of the West Coast amidst 300 miles of recreation wonderlands.
More melting pot, but here many Indian and Eastern European engineers
and technicians augment the Oriental ones.
c. North of Sacramento is forests, mountains, lakes,an agricultural plain,
and some of the most scenic coastline in the world. The area is an
environmentalist's dream with river rapids to run, hunting and fishing,
hills and valleys to hike, and national parks for camping and skiing.
Yosemite is the most beautiful American, if not global, park.
julius | ,