From the OC Register:
Ronald Knowles still wears his Chicago Bears T-shirt, but he's long been out of his home state of Illinois. Knowles, 67, arrived in Orange County in 1965, along with tens of thousands of Midwest transplants arriving each month who were lured by well-paying jobs and heavenly weather. Knowles and his wife settled in Fountain Valley, and people on his street were plumbers, electricians and auto mechanics. "This was the paradigm of middle-class America," Knowles said in an e-mail to The California Project, describing those early days. "There was a lot of opportunity out here. Everything was new.... But David Meyer, a sociology professor at UC Irvine, doesn't buy into the notion that there was a grand consensus in the past, some "mythic idea" that everybody was on the same page. He puts the blame for the state's problems directly on the voters. "The government used to have the capacity to get things done," Meyer said. "Over the years, 30 by my count, the voters have steadily eroded the ability of government to do anything. So no matter who they elect, they can't accomplish what they are supposed to do. So we always end up disappointed."

For the full story, please visit http://www.ocregister.com/news/-90409-ocprint--.html.