Storper on Income Equality and the California Dream

Michael Storper, distinguished professor of regional and international development in urban planning, was featured in an ABC7 News video about the evolution of the California dream. After more than a century of rapid growth, population growth in California has slowed in recent decades. Americans are choosing where to go on the basis of jobs, housing, climate, family and other factors, and many are leaving the Golden State for places such as Texas, Nevada and Arizona. Storper explained that comparing population growth rates in California to other states is like comparing apples to oranges. “Big metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco are still quite attractive to high-skilled, high-income people, so there is a net inflow of those groups,” he said. However, these areas are less attractive for low-income and low-education groups. Storper asked, “How can we deal with income inequality in ways that will enable people of all income levels to keep living in our state?”


1 reply
  1. John Eldon
    John Eldon says:

    The slowly growing megatrend of the past 40 years, accelerated by COVID and improved telecommunications technology, is out of crowded, noisy urban cores and into smaller towns and suburbs, in search of a modicum of peace and quiet and elbow room. Attempts to jam high density infill into established residential neighborhoods will give longstanding residents the push they needed to flee to (literally) greener pastures.

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