California on the cusp

For California, the coming decades will be a time of enormous changes, many of them unprecedented in scope. Over the next few months, Daniel Weintraub will explore the dynamics of these changes, the challenges and opportunities that they pose for California and what the state must do now to prepare for them.

State's path to the future?
Matt Rosen's daily commute is a lot like the future of transportation in California: going nowhere fast. Actually, Rosen does get where he is going, eventually. But his long daily trek reflects all the contradictions of California's rapidly clogging network of streets and highways and the state's growing but still little used public transportation system. He has given up the love affair with the car that has become a California stereotype. Yet few would look at his lifestyle and consider it a model for the rest of us.

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Charting a course for schools
Sometimes it seems as if California's political class never stops fighting over the public schools. But even as that battle turns into what looks like a struggle to the death between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the teachers unions, there is reason to hope that the coming decade eventually will bring an end to the education wars.

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The path of immigration
Watch Norma Kachigan's family, and you will see California's immigrant story unfolding across the generations. Her parents grew up in Mexico and came to Los Angeles as young adults. Lacking much formal education, speaking little English, they worked low-wage factory jobs to make ends meet.