government Gavin Newsom is angry. He is frustrated that California is not building non-stop like it was in the mid-20th century.

People are losing faith in our ability to build great things, the governor told New York Times columnist Ezra Klein in a recent interview.

People look at me all the time and ask, what the hell happened to California in the 50’s and 60’s?

Many Californians ask each other

each other

that question.

Newsom did not give a clear answer in the interview. The Democrat appeared to blame the rigidity and ideological purity of environmental organizations, claiming that this will really hurt progress.

You can’t take the climate and environment seriously without reforming the permits and procurement in this state.

That’s why the Democratic governor has been trying to push 11 bills through the legislature that would make it easier to build transportation, clean energy and water projects by cutting environmental assessments. Environmental groups are pushing back. The fight is approaching its climax.

The governor went too far by including a highly controversial project that needs to be accelerated: a 45-mile, 39-foot-wide tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that would cost a minimum of $16 billion. The monster pipe would carry the water from the Sacramento River to the California Aqueduct south for farms and cities.

It’s a bridge too far, says Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), who represents part of the delta. There is a tone of defiance in the legislature.

Lawmakers on both sides are outraged that Newsom crammed his legislative package into state budget deliberations at the last minute, avoiding scrutiny by policy committees. His proposals have nothing to do with the budget.

But back to the 1950s and 1960s: I asked a Newsom spokesman what the governor thought had happened to California’s construction boom.

We walked our own way, says Alex Stack. We got so good at stopping projects that they didn’t build like they used to.

OK, but here are some more solid reasons:

California’s population has nearly quadrupled since 1950 and more than doubled since Newsom’s birth in 1967. To accommodate the growth, we’ve bulldozed a lot of land and there are now fewer places to build, at least where there’s enough water for people.

Dan Dunmoyer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Director

of the California Building Industry Assn., says 71% of California is owned by federal, state and local governments and is prohibited from private development. to additional

Another

20% is agricultural land. Of the remaining amount, 7% has already been developed. Then only about 2% remains available for new projects.

We have 600,000 lots earmarked for housing, but can’t get them through government permits, says Dunmoyer.

We just arrange housing until death in California. We control every square inch of a house. It’s complicated, confusing, cumbersome and costs a fortune. For that reason, they can build faster with more affordability in every other state of the country. Faster and cheaper.

Critics place much of the blame on the California Environmental Quality Act. It is often abused by corporate rivals, unions seeking labor concessions from developers, and neighborhood NIMBYs Not in My Backyard to block projects. Even environmentalists recognize it

to give in

That.

There are cases where the motive is economic and has nothing to do with the environment, said David Pettit, senior attorney for the Southern California Natural Resources Defense Council. There are cases being filed that are not very good on merit.

Sierra Club California director Brandon Dawson says the Environmental Quality Act

CEQA

abused by individuals and groups who have an obstructive tendency.

Curiously, Newsom did not include housing and CEQA housing reform in his legislative package, a glaring omission. I suspect that is because trade unions disagree about the necessary reforms and environmental groups have their own ideas. The governor shied away from battle.

We were focused on building out the infrastructure needed for housing, such as water supply, clean energy, and roads and bridges, says Stack.

Another reason for the decades-long construction slowdown: California has become more environmentally conscious.

We have noticed that 95% of our wetlands have disappeared. We’ve smelled and seen the ugly smog from vehicles and the pollution from refineries. Salmon, let alone steelhead, do not spawn in the rivers and migrate out to sea as they used to because of dams and river water diversion for farms and towns. Public access to beaches has become more difficult.

Some things that were built shouldn’t have been. Just one example in Newsom’s old hometown: the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway that was an eyesore over San Francisco’s famous Fisherman’s Wharf before it was finally demolished.

The 10 Freeway cut Santa Monica’s black community in half and wiped out a number of homes, Pettit says. That probably wouldn’t happen today because we have CEQA.

Maybe a few residential treats

tracks

should not have been built in foothills prone to wildfires.

We’ve seen the downsides of poorly designed projects and overdevelopment, says Doug Obegi,

obeji,

to NRDC senior attorney in Northern California.

We’ve built power plants in underserved communities. You don’t see them in wealthy communities. Poor communities bear the burden of asthma and cancer and ill health.

We are much more sensitive to these things these days and struggle to find a balance between development and degradation. We weigh the tradeoffs and fight over them.

CEQA was adopted to tackle some of the large-scale projects of the 1950s and 1960s, says Dawson. Large dams and public works could serve the public good, but still caused a lot of damage to the environmental system.

We need to build more infrastructure for clean energy and water. That doesn’t mean we should do it in a hasty way that harms the environment.

Never again a construction storm like in the 50s and 60s. In many ways that is progress.