Калифорния: Өсім, Экономика және Әлеуметтік Өзгерістер (California: Ósim, Ekonomika jáne Áleumettik Ózgerister)

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After 1900, California continued to grow rapidly and soon became an agricultural and industrial power. The economy was widely based on specialty agriculture, oil, tourism, shipping, film, and after 1940 advanced technology such as aerospace and electronics industries – along with a significant military presence. The films and stars of Hollywood helped make the state the "center" of worldwide attention. California became an American cultural phenomenon; the idea of the "California Dream" as a portion of the larger American Dream of finding a better life drew 35 million new residents from the start to the end of the 20th century (1900–2010). Silicon Valley became the world's center for computer innovation.

In 2020 the state was the 14th largest producer of natural gas in the United States, with a total annual production of over 170 billion cu feet of gas. In 2014 natural gas was the second most widely used energy source in California. About 45% was burned in gas fired plants for electricity generation; the proportion increases as coal burning plants are phased out and nearly all new plants are powered by natural gas. One of the main advantages of natural gas is that it only produces about 55% as much CO2 as coal for the same amount of electricity produced. About 9% of the natural gas was used in facilitating the extraction of more oil and gas. Another 21% was used for residential space and water heating, cooking, clothes drying, etc. ; 9% was used for commercial building and water heating, and 15% was used in industrial use. California imports about 85% of its natural gas, using six large gas pipelines from Texas, New Mexico and Canada.

In 1911 a new California Assembly created a new railroad commission with vastly enlarged powers and brought public utilities under state supervision. Organized businessmen were the leaders of both of these reforms. The driving force for railroad regulation came less from an outraged public seeking lower rates than from shippers and merchants who wanted to stabilize their businesses. Public utility officers spearheaded campaigns for the passage, and later the enlargement of the Public Utilities Act. They expected that state regulation would reduce wasteful competition between their companies, improve the value of their companies' securities, and allow them to escape continual wrangling with county and municipal authorities. Although the businessmen were influential in obtaining the passage of bills they wanted, no group of businessmen dominated the California legislature or the railroad commission after 1910. Legislation proposed by some businessmen was opposed by other business interests.

California women had the right to own property in their own name since the first California Constitution in 1850. In 1911 California voters, in a special election, narrowly granted women the right to vote, nine years before the 19th Amendment enfranchised women nationally in 1920, but over 41 years later than the women of Wyoming had been granted the right to vote. Women's clubs flourished and turned a spotlight on issues such as public schools, dirt and pollution, and public health. California women were leaders in the temperance movement, moral reform, conservation, public schools, recreation, and other issues. They helped pass the 18th amendment, which established Prohibition in 1920. Initially, women did not often run for public office.

California played a major role in the Progressive Movement. It was the only state where the Progressives took control of the Republican Party.

California was a leader in the Progressive Movement from the 1890s into the 1920s. A coalition of reform minded Republicans, especially in southern California, coalesced around Thomas Bard (1841–1915). Bard's election in 1899 as United States senator enabled the anti machine Republicans to sustain a continuing opposition to the Southern Pacific Railroad's political power in California. They helped nominate George C. Pardee for governor in 1902 and formed the "Lincoln–Roosevelt League". In 1910 Hiram W. Johnson won the campaign for governor under the slogan "Kick the Southern Pacific out of politics." In 1912 Johnson became the running mate for Theodore Roosevelt on the new Bull Moose Party ticket. By 1916 the Progressives were supporting labor unions, which helped them in ethnic enclaves in the larger cities but alienated the native stock Protestant, middle class voters who voted heavily against Senator Johnson and President Wilson in 1916. Political progressivism varied across the state. Los Angeles (population 102,000 in 1900) focused on the dangers posed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, the liquor trade, and labor unions; San Francisco (population 342,000 in 1900) was confronted with a corrupt union backed political "machine" that was finally overthrown following the earthquake of 1906. Smaller cities like San Jose (which had a population of 22,000 in 1900) had somewhat different concerns, such as fruit cooperatives, urban development, rival rural economies, and Asian labor. San Diego (population 18,000 in 1900) had both the Southern Pacific and a corrupt machine.

California played a major role in terms of agriculture, industry, finance and propaganda during World War I. Its industrialized agriculture exported food to the Allies, 1914–1917, and expanded again when America entered the war in 1917. After the war ended, it shipped large quantities of food to central Europe as part of national relief efforts. Hollywood was thoroughly engaged, with feature films and training films. Attractive climate conditions led to the addition of numerous Army and Navy training camps and airfields. Construction of transports and warships boosted the economy of the Bay area.

Organized labor was centered in San Francisco for much of the state's early history. By the opening decades of the twentieth century, labor efforts had expanded to Los Angeles, Long Beach and the Central Valley. In 1901, the San Francisco based City Front Federation was reputed to be the strongest trade federation in the country. It grew out of intense organizational drives in every trade during the boom around the start of the 20th century. Employers also organized during the building trades strike of 1900 and the (San Francisco) City Front Federation strike of 1901, which led to the founding of the Building Trades Council. The open shop question was at stake. Out of the City Front strike came the Union Labor Party, because workers were angry at the mayor for using the police to protect strikebreakers. Eugene Schmitz was elected mayor in 1902 on the party's ticket, making San Francisco the only town in the United States, for a time, to be run by labor. A combination of corruption and unscrupulous reformers culminated in graft prosecutions in 1907. In 1910, Los Angeles was still an open shop, and employers in the north threatened for a new push to open San Francisco shops. Responding, labor sent delegations south in June 1910. National organizers were sent in during a lockout of 1,200 idled metal trades workers. Then occurred an incident that would set back Los Angeles organizing for years: on October 10, 1910, a bomb exploded at the Los Angeles Times newspaper plant that killed 21 workers. In 1912, the San Diego Common Council passed an ordinance to restrict free speech and public demonstrations over a diverse neighborhood where the local labor groups met. This columnated into the San Diego free speech fight, where police confrontations led to mass arrests, police brutality, and the lynching of dozens of people by patriotic vigilantes in reeducation camps that were overlooked by law enforcement. In the decade following, the rapid growth of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies) in un unionized trades, logging, wheat farming, and lumber camps began extending its efforts to mines, ports and agriculture. The IWW came to public notice after the Wheatland Hop Riot, when a sheriff's posse broke up a protest meeting and four people died. It led to the first legislation protecting field labor. The IWW was harmed by anti union drives and prosecution of members under the California Criminal Syndicalism Act. The IWW was also involved in the 1923 seamen's strike at San Pedro, where Upton Sinclair was arrested for reciting the Declaration of Independence. The man who became the most prominent Wobbly of all, Thomas Mooney, soon became a cause celebre of labor and the most important political prisoner in America.

The Preparedness Day Bombing killed ten people and hurt labor for decades. During the 1920s, the open shop efforts succeeded through a coordinated strategy called the "American Plan". In one case, the Industrial Association of San Francisco raised over a million dollars to break the building trades strikes in 1921 that led to the collapse of the building trades unions. This employers association cut wages twice in one year, and the Metal Trades Council was defeated, losing an agreement that had been in effect since 1907. The Seamen's Union also suffered defeat in 1921.

Unions grew rapidly after 1935 with political and legal support from the national New Deal and its Wagner Act of 1935. The most serious strike came in 1934 along the state's ports. In May 1934, dock workers and longshoremen along the West Coast went on strike for better hours and pay, a union hiring hall and a coast wide contract. Communists were in control of the union, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), led by Harry Bridges (1901–1990). On "Bloody Thursday", July 5, 1934, San Francisco was swept by bloody rioting. Striking maritime workers, pitting themselves against police, took control of much of the waterfront and warehouse areas of the city. Two workers were killed and hundreds were clubbed and gassed. The West Coast Waterfront Strike lasted 83 days, with longshoremen returning to work on July 31. Arbitration was agreed to, and it resulted in a victory for the strikers and the unionization of all West Coast ports in the United States. Historian James Gregory has explored the long term impact of the Okies on California society. Gregory finds that most came from urban backgrounds, and one in six had been a white collar worker. He notes that in The Grapes of Wrath, novelist John Steinbeck saw the migrants becoming active agitators for unions and the New Deal, demanding higher wages and better housing conditions. Steinbeck did not foresee that most Okies would move into well paid jobs in war industries in the 1940s. The children and grandchildren of the Okies seldom returned to Oklahoma. They did leave the farms and became concentrated in southern California's cities and suburbs. Long term cultural impacts include a commitment to evangelical Protestantism (especially the Pentecostals and the Southern Baptists), a love of country music, populist conservatism of the sort that boosted Ronald Reagan, and strong support for traditional moral and cultural values.

In the 1934 California gubernatorial election, novelist Upton Sinclair was the narrowly defeated Democratic nominee, running on the platform of the socialist End Poverty in California movement, a radical response to the Great Depression. Other radical movements flourished, such as the Townsend Plan for old age pension, and "Ham and Eggs", which promised "$30 Every Thursday" to everyone over age 50. Voters narrowly rejected it in 1938, and the utopians failed to enact any panaceas; however, the movements did spawn a generation of activists on the left.

The only way California can support its extensive population and agriculture is to store water in numerous reservoirs and use pipes, tunnels, pumps and canals to distribute it where it is needed when it is needed. Beginning before 1900, California has built extensive water projects costing many billions of dollars to store and move water where it is needed. California water comes primarily from snowfall in the Sierra Nevada in the northern part of the state during the relatively short winter from about October to March. The rest of the year typically has very little rainfall or snowfall. California weather is also prone to extended droughts that can last several years. During an average rainfall year, about 14% of the power used in California is generated by hydroelectricity.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct runs from the Owens Valley, through the Mojave Desert and its Antelope Valley, to dry Los Angeles far to the south. The aqueduct project began in 1905 when the people of Los Angeles approved a million bond for the "purchase of lands and water and the inauguration of work on the aqueduct". On June 12, 1907, a second bond was passed with a budget of million to fund the project. Construction began in 1908 and finished in 1913 while employing 5,000 workers during that period. The Los Angeles aqueduct as originally constructed consisted of six storage reservoirs and 215 mile (346 km) of conduit. Beginning 3.5 mile (6 km) north of Black Rock Springs, the aqueduct diverts the Owens River into an unlined canal to begin its 233 mile (375 km) journey south to the Lower San Fernando Reservoir. This reservoir was later renamed the Lower Van Norman Reservoir. Creeks flowing from the eastern Sierra are diverted into the aqueduct. The original project consisted of 24 mile (39 km) of open unlined canal, 37 mile (60 km) of lined open canal, 97 mile (156 km) of covered concrete conduit, 43 mile (69 km) of concrete tunnels, and 12.05 mile (19 km) of steel siphons. To build it required 120 mile (193 km) of railroad track, two hydroelectric plants, three cement plants, 170 mile (274 km) of power lines, 240 mile (386 km) of telephone line, and 500 mile (805 km) of roads. It was later expanded with the construction of the Mono Extension and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct. The Los Angeles Aqueduct uses gravity alone to move water and to generate electricity, so it is cost efficient to operate. Finished in 1911, the Los Angeles Aqueduct was the brain child of the self taught engineer William Mulholland and is still in use today.

Hetch Hetchy is a valley that lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. Starting in about 1901, San Francisco started looking for a new supply of municipal water. Following the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, this search intensified, and they finally chose the Tuolumne River as the "best" available water resource. The City and County of San Francisco bought most of the water rights to the Tuolumne River watershed in 1910. The Hetch Hetchy project centered on damming the main Tuolumne River as it meandered through Hetch Hetchy's wide glacial cut valley. The river, with its source in a perpetual glacier on 13000 feet (3962 m) Mount Lyell, drains of watershed of the rugged granite mountains sloping west from the Sierra Nevada crest. The Hetch Hetchy water system's goal was providing up to of water per day to San Francisco and the growing Bay Region and tap the hydroelectric power that would be generated by a dam and power stations. After a vigorous debate, the United States Congress passed the Raker Act in 1913 which authorized the building of dam(s), hydroelectricity plant and municipal water supply system inside part of Yosemite National Park. The act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson in February 1916. A key element of the plan was a new dam and reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, but access to the area was poor, so a railroad was planned to help build the dam. The steep terrain dictated a 4 degree roadbed, roughly twice as steep as a "regular" railroad. The steep grades dictated geared down locomotives. The first 9 mile (14 km) of the Hetch Hetchy Railroad (HHRR) were completed in 1915, and the remaining 59 mile (95 km) were completed by October 1917. Construction costs for the HHRR were about US$3 million, far less than what the city might have paid contractors to transport workers, concrete and other materials for the dam over the rough and steep terrain by 12 mule train wagons. The president of the railroad was San Francisco Mayor James Rolph, and the vice president and general manager was the construction project's chief engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy. The Hetch Hetchy Railroad was begun as a connection of the Sierra Railway at Hetch Hetchy Junction, 15 mile (24 km) west of Jamestown, and extended another 68 mile (109 km) to the Hetch Hetchy Dam (later named the O'Shaughnessy Dam after the chief engineer) site for delivery of construction workers and materials. The regular trains were supplemented by trucks converted to run on the tracks to carry unscheduled loads of men or supplies or evacuate ambulance patients. The railroad was dismantled and part of its road bed converted into a highway after the Michael O'Shaughnessy dam was completed, and the new Don Pedro Reservoir built in 1971 flooded part of the original track line. The vast Hetch Hetchy Project undertaking created the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, miles of tunnels, and a 150 mile (241 km) aqueduct to deliver the water and power lines to deliver electricity to the Bay Area. Of the many dams, reservoirs, and power plants, three were in the high country of Tuolumne County. The main dam was built in two phases. Large pipes called penstocks channeled water down the mountain to the main Moccasin Power hydroelectric plant completed in 1925 and rebuilt in 1968. In 1923, the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed to its initial height on the Tuolumne River, creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The dam was raised 65.5 feet (20 m) higher to its present 430 feet (131 m) height in 1939. The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 mile (269 km) west to San Francisco and its client municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Trinity Dam was the main storage feature of the Central Valley Project (CVP) proposal to divert water from the Trinity River in northwestern California to augment water supplies in the CVP service area. In 1948, the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, which was responsible for the construction and operations of most CVP facilities, devised a plan of four dams and two tunnels to capture and store some of the flow of the Trinity River and transport it to the Sacramento River, generating a net surplus of hydroelectric power along the way. Trinity Dam was the main storage feature of the division, providing a stable flow to the Lewiston Dam, the diversion point for Trinity River waters into the Central Valley via the Trinity Tunnel. Trinity Lake was completely filled with water from the Trinity River by 1963, becoming the third largest lake in California, with 145 mile (233 km) of shoreline. Shasta Dam is a concrete arch gravity dam across the Sacramento River in the northern part of California, at the north end of the Sacramento Valley. The dam mainly serves long term water storage and flood control in its reservoir, Shasta Lake. The lake has 365 mile (587 km) of mostly steep mountainous shoreline covered with tall evergreen trees and manzanita. The lake's maximum depth is 517 feet (158 m). Water released from the lake generates hydroelectric power. At 602 feet (183 m) high, the dam is the ninth tallest dam in the United States and forms the largest reservoir in California. Shasta Dam was envisioned as early as 1919 because of frequent floods and droughts troubling California's largest agricultural region, the Central Valley. Shasta Dam was first authorized in the 1930s as a state undertaking. However, this coincided with the Great Depression, and building of the dam was transferred to the federal Bureau of Reclamation as a public works project. Construction started in earnest in 1937 under the supervision of Chief Engineer Frank Crowe. During its building, the dam provided thousands of much needed jobs; it was finished 26 months ahead of schedule in 1945. When completed, the dam was the second tallest in the United States after Hoover, and was considered one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. Even before its dedication, Shasta Dam served an important role in World War II, providing electricity to California factories, and it still plays a vital part in the management of state water resources. However, it has brought about major changes to the environment and ecology of the Sacramento River, and met with controversy over its significant destruction of Native American tribal lands. In recent years, there has been debate over whether or not to raise the dam in order to allow for increased water storage and hydropower generation. Pardee Dam is a 345 feet (105 m) structure across the Mokelumne River on the boundary between Amador and Calaveras counties, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada approximately 30 mile (48 km) northeast of Stockton. The Pardee Reservoir impounds of water when it is full. Construction on the Mokelumne Aqueduct and Pardee Dam began in 1926, and by 1929 the 345 feet (105 m) concrete arch Pardee Dam and the First Mokelumne Aqueduct, consisting of a single pipeline, were completed. The first deliveries to the Bay Area from the reservoir were made on June 23, 1929. At the time of completion, Pardee Dam was the tallest in the world (this record was surpassed one year later by Diablo Dam in Washington). In 1949, a second pipeline was built, and in 1963 the third pipeline was constructed, bringing the aqueduct to its present capacity. In 1964, the second major dam and reservoir on the Mokelumne River, the Camanche Dam and Camanche Reservoir, were completed below Pardee. The Mokelumne Aqueduct and dam(s), run by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), is the primary water source for 35 communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, including Berkeley and Oakland. EBMUD holds water rights to almost all of the in the Mokelumne River watershed and in other watersheds. EBMUD also has an American River water right that could be sent to the Mokelumne Aqueduct through the Folsom South Canal. The California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada mountains and valleys of northern and central California to southern California. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) operates and maintains the California Aqueduct, including the two largest pumped storage hydroelectric plants in California, Castaic and Gianelli. Gianelli is located at the base of San Luis Dam, which forms San Luis Reservoir, the largest off stream reservoir in the United States. The Castaic Power Plant is located at the northern end of Castaic Lake, while Castaic Dam is located at the southern end. The aqueduct begins at the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta at the Banks Pumping Plant, which pumps from the Clifton Court Forebay. Water is pumped by the Banks Pumping Plant to the Bethany Reservoir, which serves as a forebay for the South Bay Aqueduct via the South Bay Pumping Plant. From the Bethany Reservoir, the aqueduct flows by gravity approximately 60 mile (97 km) to the O'Neill Forebay at the San Luis Reservoir. From the O'Neill Forebay, it flows approximately 16 mile (26 km) to the Dos Amigos Pumping Plant. After Dos Amigos, the aqueduct flows about 95 mile (153 km) to where the Coastal Branch splits from the "main line". The split is approximately 16 mile (26 km) south southeast of Kettleman City. After the Coastal Branch, the line continues by gravity another 66 mile (106 km) to the Buena Vista Pumping Plant. From the Buena Vista, it flows approximately 27 mile (43 km) to the Teerink Pumping Plant. After Teerink it flows about 2.5 mile (4 km) to the Chrisman Pumping Plant. Chrisman is the last pumping plant before the Edmonston Pumping Plant, which is 13 mile (21 km) from Chrisman. South of the plant the west branch splits off in a southwesterly direction to serve the Los Angeles Basin. At the Edmonston Pumping Plant it is pumped 1926 feet (587 m) over the Tehachapi Mountains. Water flows through the aqueduct in a series of abrupt rises and gradual falls. The water flows down a long segment, built at a slight grade, and arrives at a pumping station powered by Path 66 or Path 15. The pumping station raises the water, where it again gradually flows downhill to the next station. However, where there are substantial drops, the water's potential energy is recaptured by hydroelectric plants. The initial pumping station fed by the Sacramento River Delta raises the water 240 feet (73 m), while a series of pumps culminating at the Edmonston Pumping Plant raises the water 1926 feet (587 m) over the Tehachapi Mountains. The Edmonston Pumping station requires so much power that several power lines off Path 15 and Path 26 are needed to ensure proper operation of the pumps. A typical section has a concrete lined channel 40 feet (12 m) at the base and an average water depth of about 30 feet (9 m). The widest section of the aqueduct is 110 feet (34 m), and the deepest is 32 feet (10 m). Channel capacity is , and the largest pumping plant capacity at Dos Amigos is
The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a water management project under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is the world's largest publicly built and operated water and power development and conveyance system, providing drinking water for more than 23 million people and generating an average of 6,500 GWh of hydroelectricity annually. However, as the largest single consumer of power in the state, its net output in an "average" rainfall year is 5,100 GWh. The SWP collects water from rivers in northern California and redistributes it to the water scarce but populous south through a network of aqueducts, pumping stations and hydroelectric plants. About 70% of the water provided by the project is used for urban areas and industry in southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, and 30% is used for irrigation in the Central Valley. To reach southern California, the water must be pumped 2000 feet (610 m) over the Tehachapi Mountains—the highest single water lift in the world. The SWP shares many facilities with the federal Central Valley Project (CVP), which primarily serves agricultural users. Water can be interchanged between SWP and CVP canals as needed to meet peak requirements for project constituents. The SWP provides estimated annual benefits of $400 billion to California's economy. Since its inception in 1960, the SWP has required the construction of 21 dams and more than 700 mile (1127 km) of canals, pipelines and tunnels, although these constitute only a fraction of the facilities originally proposed. As a result, the project has only delivered an average of annually, as compared to total entitlements of Environmental concerns caused by the dry season removal of water from the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, a sensitive estuary region, have often led to further reductions in water delivery. Work continues today to expand the SWP's water delivery capacity while finding solutions for the environmental impacts of water diversion. The Colorado River Aqueduct, or CRA, is a 242 mile (389 km) water conveyance in southern California, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu on the California–Arizona border. This water is then transferred west by pumping stations, reservoirs, and canals across the Mojave and Colorado deserts to the east side of the Santa Ana Mountains. It is one of the primary sources of drinking water for southern California. Originally conceived by William Mulholland and designed by Chief Engineer Frank E. Weymouth of the MWD, it was the largest public works project in southern California during the Great Depression. The project employed 30,000 people over an eight year period and as many as 10,000 at one time. The system is composed of two reservoirs, five pumping stations, 63 mile (101 km) of canals, 92 mile (148 km) of tunnels, and 84 mile (135 km) of buried conduit and siphons. Average annual throughput is The stated goal is the recycling of of treated municipal wastewater. On March 14, 2014, the State Water Board approved $800 million in financial incentives for recycled water projects. These projects typically take years to get approved and built. The Water Replenishment District of Southern California (WRD), in service since 1959, is one of the more aggressive agencies that use recycled water for their groundwater replenishment and seawater intrusion barriers. To prevent seawater contamination of their groundwater, they have several sets of injection wells that inject clean water between their aquifer and the sea. This creates a local water barrier to seawater intrusion. The other mechanism is to make sure the water level is above sea level. Well users, including municipal water users, in the WRD area pump about of water per year out of their aquifer. This is an "overdraft" of about of water over what their underground aquifer can "normally" refill. To replace this "overdraft" of water into the aquifer, they have flotation ponds that catch rain runoff water, and supplement with other water they either buy or recycle, then let the water soak into the ground (spreading water) to help replenish the water in the aquifer(s). In addition they buy Colorado River water that is shipped via the Colorado River Aqueduct, and they accept part of the treated municipal wastewater of the about 4,000,000 people in their district and treat it to additional purity and sanitation levels by using reverse osmosis and advanced filtering. Their largest tertiary water treatment facility is the Leo J. Vander Lans Advanced Water Treatment facility. The water out of this facility is better than the water that comes out of the "average" municipal water treatment facility. To finance their water recycling projects WRD charges $268 per acre foot of water pumped out, which generates about $65,000,000/year. WRD is now on a project (WIN) to enlarge their water treatment facilities to take larger quantities of treated municipal wastewater and treat enough of it that they will not have to buy Colorado River water. Overall it is estimated that this project provides over 40% of the water used in the southern California district served by the WRD. Among the many water recycling projects just being completed, the South Bay Water Recycling program distributes recycled water to more than 400 customers in the San Jose, area for irrigation, industrial and other purposes. In northern California, two agencies have teamed up to develop the San Ramon Valley Recycled Water Program. Jointly sponsored by the Dublin San Ramon Services District and the East Bay Municipal Utility District, the program will provide recycled water to municipal parks, golf courses, business parks, greenbelts and roadways. The Irvine Ranch Water District has built a dual water system, which supplies recycled water to commercial high rises for use in flushing toilets and urinals. A West Basin Municipal Water District project distributes recycled water to more than 85 customers, including Chevron and Mobil refineries. Monterey County Water Recycling Projects provide recycled water for agricultural irrigation to help ease demands on an overused groundwater aquifer. The Padre Dam Water Recycling Facility was expanded to recycle 2 million gallons/day for turf irrigation at parks, golf courses and other commercial and industrial facilities. In the San Diego region, 16 water agencies are planning to use over of recycled water per year in order to meet the region's water supply demand. The city of Carlsbad's new recycled water treatment and distribution system will deliver approximately per year of recycled water to customers located in that community. In the southern portion of San Diego County, the Otay Water District is constructing a distribution system to deliver an estimated per year of recycled water by 2030 purchased from the city of San Diego's South Bay Water Recycling Plant. In southern California, the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District is using recycled water to help replenish and enhance Lake Elsinore. The Orange County Sanitation and Orange County Water Districts are planning for treated wastewater, currently discharged into the ocean, to undergo microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet disinfection. The purified water will be equivalent in quality to distilled water and exceed all state and federal drinking water standards. The purified water will be pumped to spreading ponds near the Santa Ana River for percolation into the groundwater basin, with some injected through injection wells along the coast as a barrier to seawater intrusion. Like the WRD projects in southern California, the Orange County Water District has amassed a long record of successfully recycling water with its Water Factory 21.

On December 24, 2012, the San Diego County Water Authority announced they had sold $734 million worth of tax free bonds at 4.38% interest to build the Carlsbad Seawater Desalination Project, the largest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. The project is located near the Encina Power Station in Carlsbad, and is expected to produce about of water per year by 2016 when the project is completed. The plant is expected to use over 17,000 reverse osmosis racks. The project includes $80 million in San Diego Water Authority upgrades to its own facilities. A 10 mile (16 km) pipeline is being built to deliver desalinated water into its Twin Oaks Valley Water Treatment Plant near San Marcos. The developer Poseidon Resources is building the plant and pipeline in a joint venture with contractor Kiewit Shea Desalination. The project will deliver up to 50 million gallons a day of drought proof, highly reliable water that will become a core, day to day resource for the region. It is projected to meet about 7% of San Diego County's demand in 2020. The total cost is projected at $1,849 to $2,257 per acre foot. The additional cost of desalinating seawater will add $5 to $7 per month to ratepayers' bills—about a 10% increase. Poseidon has also proposed the Huntington Beach Desalination Plant. The 2014 drought has brought reconsideration of the Charles Meyer Desalination Facility that was built for $34 million in the early 1990s in Santa Barbara but was later essentially mothballed when the drought was over. There are early discussions about investing around $20 million more to upgrade and restart the desalination plant. They have permits to make about of desalinated water per year, but they will incur additional costs to pump their desalinated water to existing higher elevation reservoirs if they reactivate the plant. The projected costs (2014) were about $3,000 per acre foot. The small city of Sand City, located on the Monterey Peninsula, struck out on its own in 2007 to develop a small desalination plant. The city partnered with California American Water for the $14 million project, which started producing 300 acre feet of freshwater a year in 2010. The cost and water are shared with other nearby small communities.

The web site run by the California Department of Water Resources lists the present reservoir storage levels for each of California's major reservoirs. Individual reservoir capacities and percent of full are given for the major reservoirs. As of April 3, 2014, they had of water stored, or about 65% of the of water they usually would have at that time of year.

Automobile travel became important after 1910 when motor cars and trucks began to become common. Before that, nearly all long distance travel was by railroad or stagecoach, with horse or mule drawn wagons hauling the freight. California started to maintain state roads in 1895. Construction of a large connected state highway system began in 1912. The last large addition to the state highway system was made by the California State Assembly in 1959, after which only minor changes have been made. Most new highway construction was then done on the Interstate Highway System started under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation.

The first decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of the film studio system. MGM, Universal and Warner Brothers all acquired land in Hollywood, which was then a small subdivision known as "Hollywoodland" on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The enormous variety in terrain and the year round sunshine made filmmaking easier and cheaper, and actors, producers, financiers and craftsmen headed to Hollywood. The movies made California even better known, attracting hundreds of thousands of migrants, especially from the Midwest, who loved the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and new jobs. By the 1930s, Hollywood had extended its reach into radio, and by 1950 southern California had also become a major center of television production, hosting studios for major networks such as NBC and CBS.

In 1883–1886, John J. Montgomery began experimenting with gliders. He made the first controlled flights in a heavier than air flying machine in America. Montgomery was killed in 1911 in a glider related accident. After Wilbur and Orville Wright demonstrated the feasibility of controlled manned flight, Glenn Curtiss entered the field, focusing on aircraft manufacturing and pilot training. Part of this training was done in California. The Los Angeles International Air Meet (January 10 to January 20, 1910) was among the earliest air shows in the world and the first major air show in the United States. It was held in Los Angeles County at Dominguez Field in present day Compton. The Los Angeles Times called it "one of the greatest public events in the history of the West." On November 29, 1910, Glenn H. Curtiss wrote to Secretary of the Navy George von L. Meyer offering flight instruction without charge for one Navy officer as one means of assisting "in developing the adaptability of the aeroplane to military purposes." In the winter of 1910, Glenn Curtiss established a private flying school on North Island, on land obtained through the cooperation of the Aero Club of San Diego. He soon invited the Army and Navy to send officers to receive free instruction as "aeroplane pilots". On December 23, 1910, Lieut. T. Gordon "Spuds" Ellyson was ordered to report to the Glenn Curtiss Aviation Camp at North Island in San Diego. He completed his training April 12, 1911, and became Naval Aviator No. 1. The original site of this winter encampment is now part of Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego and is referred to by the Navy as "The Birthplace of Naval Aviation". On January 18, 1911, at 11:01 a. m., Eugene Ely, flying a Curtiss pusher, landed on a specially built platform aboard the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania at anchor in San Francisco Bay. At 11:58 a. m., he took off and returned to Selfridge Field, San Francisco. Caltech in Pasadena provided an ideal situation for the development and manufacture of aircraft. In 1925, aircraft builder Donald Douglas and Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler worked together with Caltech president Robert Millikan to bring a state of the art aeronautical research laboratory to the Pasadena college. Douglas recruited some of Caltech's best and brightest students for his company. Douglas utilized the lab's wind tunnel and research staff while designing his DC 1, 2, and 3. In this way, the DC 3, undoubtedly one of the most successful aircraft designs ever built, represented more than just a single designer's project. It was a regional product, the result of an alliance of business and science created over the preceding five decades. The Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) traces its beginnings to 1936 in the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT), when the first set of rocket experiments were carried out in the Arroyo Seco. Caltech graduate students Frank Malina, Weld Arnold, Apollo M. O. Smith, and Tsien Hsue shen, along with Jack Parsons and Edward S. Forman, tested a small, alcohol fueled motor to gather data for Malina's graduate thesis. Malina's thesis adviser was engineer aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán, who eventually arranged for United States Army financial support for this "GALCIT Rocket Project" in 1939. In 1941, Malina, Parsons, Forman, Martin Summerfield, and pilot Homer Bushey demonstrated the first jet assisted takeoff rockets (JATO units) to the Army. In 1943, von Kármán, Malina, Parsons, and Forman established the Aerojet Corporation to manufacture JATO motors. The project took on the name Jet Propulsion Laboratory in November 1943, formally becoming an Army facility operated under contract by the university. During JPL's Army years, the laboratory developed two deployed weapon systems, the MGM 5 Corporal and MGM 29 Sergeant intermediate range ballistic missiles, the first US ballistic missiles developed at JPL. It also developed a number of other weapons system prototypes, such as the Loki anti aircraft missile system, and the forerunner of the Aerobee sounding rocket. At various times, it carried out rocket testing at the White Sands Proving Ground, Edwards Air Force Base, and Goldstone, California. A lunar lander was also developed in 1938–39 which influenced design of the Apollo Lunar Module in the 1960s. becoming the agency's primary planetary spacecraft center. JPL engineers designed and operated Ranger and Surveyor missions to the Moon that prepared the way for the Apollo program. JPL also led the way in interplanetary exploration with the Mariner missions to Venus, Mars, and Mercury. as of 2013, it has found 95% of asteroids that are a kilometer or more in diameter that cross Earth's orbit. In 1940, 65% of aircraft manufacturers were located along or near the East or West Coasts of the United States. California alone had 44 percent of all aircraft manufacturing. In 1944, 12 states shared 85 percent of airframe floor space, and California's percentage had dropped to 24%. Engine and propeller manufacturing had also decentralized. Most wartime expansion took place inland due to concerns over possible coastal attacks. After the war, massive layoffs occurred as wartime orders were cancelled. Major manufacturers of aircraft in California were/are Douglas Aircraft Company, Lockheed Corporation, Boeing, Hughes Aircraft, Glenn L. Martin Company, North American Aviation, Northrop Corporation, Vultee, and many others. Many of these early companies would disappear or consolidate with other companies. However, a few would grow to become giants in the industry.

Gallery of aircraft and spacecraft built and developed (wholly or in part) in California. Many more could be included. During World War II, California's mild climate became a major resource for the war effort. Numerous air training bases were established in southern California, where most aircraft manufacturers, including Douglas Aircraft and Hughes Aircraft, expanded or established factories. Major naval shipyards were established or expanded in San Diego, Long Beach, and Mare Island in San Francisco Bay.

Conversely, during the same period, the Golden State also attracted commercial and industrial expansion at astronomical rates. The adoption of a Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 allowed the development of a highly efficient system of public higher education in the community colleges and the University of California and California State University systems; by creating an educated workforce, it attracted investment, particularly in areas related to high technology. By 1980, California became recognized as the world's eighth largest economy. Millions of workers were needed to fuel the expansion. The high population of the time caused tremendous problems with urban sprawl, traffic, pollution, and, to a lesser extent, crime. Urban sprawl created a backlash in many areas, with local governments limiting growth beyond certain boundaries, reducing lot sizes for building homes, and so on. Open space districts were created in several parts of the state specifically to obtain, manage, and preserve undeveloped land. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the open space districts have created a nearly contiguous range of permanently undeveloped land running through the coastal range and hills surrounding the Bay's urban valleys, enabling the creation of huge natural parks and envisioning a hiking trail that will eventually circumnavigate the Bay in an unbroken loop. The immense problem with air pollution (smog) that had developed by the early 1970s also caused a backlash. With schools being closed routinely in urban areas for "smog days" when the ozone levels became too unhealthy and the hills surrounding urban areas seldom visible even within a mile, Californians were ready for changes. Over the next three decades, California enacted some of the strictest anti smog regulations in the United States and has been a leader in encouraging nonpolluting strategies for various industries, including automobiles. For example, carpool lanes normally allow only vehicles with two/three or more occupants (whether the base number is two or three depends on what freeway you are on), but electric cars can use the lanes with only a single occupant. As a result, smog is significantly reduced from its peak, although local Air Quality Management Districts still monitor the air and generally encourage people to avoid polluting activities on hot days when smog is expected to be at its worst. Traffic and transportation remain a problem in urban areas. Solutions are implemented, but inevitably the implementation expense and the time required to plan, approve, and build infrastructure can't keep pace with the population growth. There have been some improvements. Carpool lanes have become common in urban areas, which are intended to encourage people to drive together rather than in individual automobiles. San Jose is gradually building a light rail system (often over routes of an original turn of the century electric railroad line that was torn out and paved over to encourage the advent of the automobile age). None of the implemented solutions are without their critics. The sprawling nature of the Bay Area and of the Los Angeles Basin makes it difficult to build mass transit that can reach and serve a significant portion of the population. During the 1960s, under the aegis of Chief Justice Roger J. Traynor, the California Supreme Court became more liberal and progressive. Traynor's term as Chief Justice (from 1964 to 1970) was marked by a number of firsts: California was the first state to create true strict liability in product liability cases, the first to allow the action of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) even in the absence of physical injury to the plaintiff, and the first to allow bystanders to sue for NIED where the only physical injury was to a relative. Starting in the 1960s, California became a leader in family law. California was the first state to allow true no fault divorce, with the passage of the Family Law Act of 1969. In 1994, the Legislature took family law out of the Civil Code and created a new Family Code. In 2002, the Legislature granted registered domestic partners the same rights under state law as married spouses. In 2008 California became the second state to legalize same sex marriage when the California Supreme Court ruled the ban unconstitutional. Since the mid 1980s, the California Supreme Court has become more conservative, particularly with regard to the rights of criminal defendants. This is commonly seen as a reaction against the strict anti death penalty stance of Chief Justice Rose Bird in the early 1980s, although the funding that eventually brought about her defeat was from corporate and business interests concerned with what they felt was an anti business stance by the Chief Justice. The state's electorate responded by removing her (and two of her perceived liberal allies) from the court in November 1986.

Starting in the 1950s, high technology companies in northern California began a spectacular growth that continued through the end of the 20th century. The major products included personal computers, video games, and networking systems. The majority of these companies settled along a highway stretching from Palo Alto to San Jose, notably including Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, all in the Santa Clara Valley, the so called "Silicon Valley", named after the material used to produce the integrated circuits of the era. This era peaked in 2000, by which time demand for skilled technical professionals had become so high that the high tech industry had trouble filling all of its positions and therefore pushed for increased visa quotas so that they could recruit from overseas. When the "Dot com bubble" burst in 2001, jobs evaporated overnight, and for the first time over the next two years more people moved out of the area than moved in. This somewhat mirrored the collapse of the aerospace industry in southern California some twenty years earlier.

Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust. Wildfires have also been a major environmental concern, with the smoke resulting from these fires causing severe health problems, as well as severe climatological events such as Orange Skies Day. Since 2000, the area that burned annually has ranged between 90,000 acres, or 0.09%, and 1,590,000 acres, or 1.59% of the total land of California. An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.

The ongoing demand for well educated workers continued. Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase so that a modest home that in the 1960s cost $25,000, cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007 8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt. In the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Democratic incumbent Gray Davis defeated Republican challenger Bill Simon. On October 7, 2003, Davis was recalled, with 55.4% of the voters supporting the recall (see results of the 2003 California recall). With a plurality of 48.6% of the vote, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was chosen as the new governor. Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante received 31.5% of the vote, and Republican state senator Tom McClintock received 13.5% of the vote. Schwarzenegger began his shortened term with a soaring approval rating and soon after began implementing a conservative agenda. This initially resulted in sparring with the heavily Democratic Assembly and Senate over the state budget, battles which provided his infamous "girly men" comment but also began taking their toll on his approval rating. Schwarzenegger then embarked on a campaign to enact several ballot propositions in a 2005 special election touted as reforming California's budget system, redistricting powers, and union political fundraising. The union led campaign spearheaded by the California Nurses Association contributed heavily to the defeat of every proposition in the special election. Since this conspicuous failure, Schwarzenegger made a turn back to the left, criticizing the Bush Administration at many junctures, reviving his environmental agenda, and compromising with the legislature on the traditionally Democratic issue of education spending. His approval rating also revived, and he was re elected in 2006. However, continued paralysis in state government and the inability of the legislature and governor to work out the fundamental funding questions resulted in voter disapproval of both the legislators and the governor, whose approval rating was among the lowest ever recorded pending the election of Jerry Brown in November 2010.

The 2011–2017 California drought persisted from December 2011 to March 2017 and consisted of the driest period in California's recorded history, late 2011 through 2014. The drought wiped out 102 million trees from 2011 to 2016, 62 million of those during 2016 alone. The cause of the drought was attributed to a ridge of high pressure in the Pacific Sea—the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge"—which often barred powerful winter storms from reaching the state. By February 2017, the state's drought percentage returned to lower levels seen before the start of the drought. This change was due to an exceedingly wet pattern caused by atmospheric river enhanced Pacific storms, which caused severe flooding. In mid March 2019, California was declared drought free except for a small pocket of abnormally dry conditions in Southern California. This declaration followed a series of powerful Pacific storms during the first few months of the year, which coincided with the U. S. experiencing drought conditions in the fewest parts of the country since 2000.

One of the first confirmed COVID 19 cases in the United States that occurred in California was first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. Meaning, all of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China in Asia, as testing was restricted to this group. On this January 29, 2020, as disease containment protocols were still being developed, the U. S. Department of State evacuated 195 persons from Wuhan, China aboard a chartered flight to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, and in this process, it may have granted and conferred to escalated within the land and the US at cosmic. On February 5, 2020, the U. S. evacuated 345 more citizens from Hubei Province to two military bases in California, Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where they were quarantined for 14 days. A state of emergency was largely declared in this state of the nation on March 4, 2020, having been terminated on February 28, 2023. A mandatory statewide stay at home order was issued on March 19, 2020, due to increase, which was ended on January 25, 2021, allowing citizens to return to normal life. On April 6, 2021, the state announced plans to fully reopen the economy by June 15, 2021. The COVID 19 pandemic in the United States has accelerated the continuing exodus of business from the entire downtown core of San Francisco. Significantly high levels of crime, open air drug use, homelessness, and closed storefronts have become more prominent features of Union Square.

SoFi Stadium (/'//s//oʊ//f//aɪ/ SOHfy) is a 70,240 seat sports and entertainment indoor outdoor stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California, United States. SoFi occupies the former site of the Hollywood Park Racetrack, 0.15 mile (0 km) southeast of Kia Forum and 0.2 mile (0 km) northwest of Intuit Dome, and 3 mile (5 km) from Los Angeles International Airport. The stadium complex is a component of Hollywood Park, a master planned neighborhood in development on the site of the former racetrack. Hollywood Park Casino re opened in a new building on the property in October 2016, becoming the development's first establishment to open. Opened in September 2020, the fixed roof stadium is home to the National Football League (NFL)'s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, as well as the annual LA Bowl in college football. SoFi Stadium is one of two stadiums currently shared by a pair of NFL teams, the other being MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, shared by the New York Giants and New York Jets. It is the first stadium complex outside of the New York metropolitan area to host two NFL teams concurrently; the other three since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger have been Shea Stadium, Giants Stadium and MetLife Stadium. In North American professional sports, it is the fourth stadium complex in Greater Los Angeles shared by more than one team from the same league. The other venues have been Crypto. com Arena, which has hosted both of the city's National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, since 1999 (although this arrangement will end by 2024); Dignity Health Sports Park, which is home to Major League Soccer (MLS)'s LA Galaxy and the now defunct Chivas USA from 2005 to 2014; and Dodger Stadium, which was shared by Major League Baseball (MLB)'s Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels from 1962 to 1965. The stadium hosted Super Bowl LVI on February 13, 2022, the College Football Playoff National Championship on January 9, 2023, WrestleMania 39 on April 1–2, 2023, and the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup final on July 16, 2023. It is scheduled to host multiple matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Super Bowl LXI in 2027, and the opening and closing ceremonies (as well as soccer and archery events) of the 2028 Summer Olympics. The NFL approved the Inglewood proposal and the Rams' relocation back to Los Angeles, 30–2, on January 12, 2016, over the rival proposal. On July 14, 2016, it was announced that Turner Construction and AECOM Hunt would oversee construction of the stadium and that the architectural firm HKS, Inc. would design the stadium. On October 19, 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) determined that a tall LB 44 rotary drill rig would not pose a hazard to air navigation, so it approved the first of several pieces of heavy equipment to be used during construction. The stadium design had been under review by the FAA for more than a year because of concerns about how the structure would interact with radar at nearby Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). On December 16, 2016, it was reported in Sports Business Journal that the FAA had declined to issue permits for cranes needed to build the structure. "We're not going to evaluate any crane applications until our concerns with the overall project are resolved," said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. The FAA had previously recommended building the stadium at another site because of the risks posed to LAX—echoing concerns raised by former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The Rams held the groundbreaking construction ceremony at the stadium site on November 17, 2016. The ceremony featured NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Rams' owner Stan Kroenke. On December 23, 2016, the FAA approved the large construction cranes to build the stadium.

Carle, David. Introduction to Water in California (2004). 261 pp. Deverell, William and Hise, Greg, eds. Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History of Metropolitan Los Angeles. U. of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 350 pp. excerpt and online search
Deverell, William. Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850–1910 (1994). 278 pp. Godfrey, Anthony. The Ever Changing View: A History of the National Forests in California. US Forest Service, 2005. 657 pp. Griggs, Gary; Patsch, Kiki; and Savoy, Lauret, eds. Living with the Changing California Coast (2005). 540 pp. Hundley Jr., Norris. The Great Thirst: Californians and Water—A History (2nd ed. 2001) excerpt and text search
Isenberg, Andrew C. Mining California: An Ecological History (2005). 242 pp. Jelinek, Lawrence. Harvest Empire: A History of California Agriculture (1982)
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Pincetl, Stephanie S. Transforming California: A Political History of Land Use and Development (2003) excerpt and text search
Righter, Robert W. The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism (2005). 303 pp. Sackman, Douglas Cazaux. Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden (2005). 386 pp. Street, Richard Steven. Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769–1913 (2004). 904 pp. Thompson, Gregory Lee. The Passenger Train in the Motor Age: California's Rail and Bus Industries, 1910–1941 (1993). 247 pp. Vogel, David. California Greenin’: How the Golden State Became an Environmental Leader (2018) 280 pp online review

Abelmann, Nancy, and John Lie. Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots (1995)
Aron, Stephen. "Convergence, California and the Newest Western History," California History Vol. 86#4, September 2009. pp 4+ historiography. Bell, Jonathan. "Social Democracy and the Rise of the Democratic Party in California, 1950–1964." Historical Journal 49.2 (2006): 497–524. online
Fogelson, Robert M. The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850–1930 (1993)

Higgins, Andrew Stone. Higher Education for All: Racial Inequality, Cold War Liberalism, and the California Master Plan. University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Miller, Sally M., and Daniel A. Cornford, eds. American Labor in the Era of World War II (1995). Essays by scholars, mostly on California
Roger W. Lotchin. Fortress California, 1910–1961 (2002)
George E. Mowry. The California Progressives (1963)
Sackman, Douglas Cazaux. Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden. (2005) comprehensive, multidimensional history of citrus industry
Pincetl, Stephanie S. Transforming California: A Political History of Land Use and Development (2003)
Sitton, Tom and William F, Deverell, eds. Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s (2001)
Swiontek, Danielle Jean. With Ballots and Pocketbooks: Women, Labor, and Reform in Progressive California (2006)
Westwick, Peter J., ed. Blue Sky Metropolis: The Aerospace Century in Southern California (U of California Press; 2012) 308 pages; essays by scholars