10.4: Summary

During the postwar years, California’s booming economy and population propelled the state into the national spotlight. Its industrial base, benefiting from federal defense expenditures, not only broke new technological ground, but also attracted thousands of newcomers with the promise of prosperity. Growth, however, placed severe strains on existing infrastructure and prompted state and local government to invest heavily in education, social services, transportation, recreation, community health, and public works. At the same time, thousands of Californians abandoned the older urban core for new suburban developments. Industry soon followed. This population shift destroyed millions of acres of open space and valuable agricultural land and transferred urban problems like air and water pollution to relatively unspoiled areas. It also reinforced social and economic inequalities. Non-whites, shut out of the suburban boom by discriminatory housing practices, were left with a declining urban infrastructure, diminishing tax base, and shrinking job prospects. Despite their “ghettoization,” ethnic minorities still had cause for optimism. Many Californians, recalling the democratic rhetoric of the war, were concerned about civil rights. Anti-Communist hysteria, while damaging and distracting, failed to extinguish popular support for liberal reform. Moreover, urban ghettos, by concentrating ethnic groups in specific districts, enhanced minority political power. Thus, by the end of the postwar era, African Americans and Mexican Americans achieved significant legislative and political victories on the state and local levels. By the early 1960s, however, serious questions remained. Was civil rights legislation enough to solve the state’s “racial dilemma”? Were middle-class values and the suburban lifestyle stifling women and the young? Was postwar expansion extracting too heavy a toll on the environment? These questions, which arose during the 1950s, would find vocal expression during the tumultuous ’60s.