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> provide enormous numbers of people with homes

Citation needed. California is probably the most NIMBY state in America, they don't build housing anywhere except in exurbs closer and closer to places of high wildfire risk.

I don't think California's success is because of the government. It's largely because of momentum, and because of other intangibles like good weather year-round.

Here's an analogy: if I complain that a beachside restaurant has shitty food and you say "yet it continues to have plenty of customers", that doesn't really disprove my point. All it says is we're likely to be stuck with shitty food for a long time.

Actually it does disprove your point. There are clearly plenty of people who think that the food is good enough to pay for it and keep the restaurant in business so it is far more likely that you have no idea how to properly value the food or run a successful restaurant.

Why is government competence measured with GDP? The function of the government is not to maximize GDP.

I wonder how much longer this will last.

Probably longer than the other, insolvent states.