“Climate. Housing. Crime. Depending on who you ask, the Golden State is a bellwether for progress, or a liberal hellscape. A journey through a land in crisis.”
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Posted inEditor's Pick
What Lies Beneath
“This is the grand Tahoe experiment: if we throw the book at aquatic invasives, can we, as the bumper stickers say, Keep Tahoe Blue?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Altadena: Four Stories
For three weeks in January, the Eaton Fire raced through the small community of Altadena, California, destroying more than 9,000 buildings and killing seventeen people. Afterward, we invited four writers, all longtime local residents, to share memories, and photographs, of what burned, and what didn’t.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Unmasking the Sea Star Killer
“After a decade of carnage, we finally know what’s devastating sea stars along North America’s West Coast. Does that mean scientists can save them?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Last Resort
“At Bombay Beach, a half-ruined former vacation town on the edge of the Salton Sea, absurdist philosophers, artists, and everyday townsfolk have undertaken a postapocalyptic experiment in radical living.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Other Side of the World’s Largest Dam Removal
“Removing dams from the Klamath River in Northern California seems like a clear win for fish and rivers. Why do some locals hate it?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Diary of a Spreadsheet
“Landlords raise rents, evict, harass, all without hesitation. Were they finally feeling a consequence for their actions?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Santa Maria
“A youthful obsession with Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’ turns to frustration over how its subject, Florence Owens Thompson, an Indigenous woman, has been misperceived.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Rebuilding the Maze
“After a crucial section of a California freeway collapsed, this formidable construction boss pulled off one of the fastest, riskiest, most high-stakes reconstructions in U.S. history.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Paradise Redux
“In Butte County, California, five years after the Camp Fire.”
