On the ground, it\u2019s hard to get a fix on the Central Valley; it flashes by as dun-colored monotony \u2014 a sun-stunned void beyond the freeway berms. The view from the air is clarifying, then. Aloft, the landscape resolves itself into a semblance of order: sterile and abstract \u2014 a frieze of clean lines, hard angles, swatches of green and brown, and pane-like water features. For many Angelenos, it\u2019s just that: flyover territory. But in \u201cThe Dreamt Land,\u201d former L.A. Times reporter Mark Arax makes a riveting case that this expanse \u2014 450 miles lengthwise from Shasta to Tehachapi; 60 miles across from the Sierra Nevada to the Coastal Range \u2014 as much as the world cities on its coast, holds the key to understanding California.<\/p>\n
The wide-angle view is of a land transfigured by the human hand \u2014 its waterways dammed, diverted, even reversed to quench thousands of otherwise-arid acres, themselves scoured and graded. \u201cThe valley in its natural state resembled a rolling savanna not unlike the Serengeti,\u201d writes Arax. Today, it stands primped for agricultural production \u2014 a project unparalleled globally. But if it\u2019s no less man-made than the concrete canyons of Los Angeles and San Francisco, it\u2019s also revealed here to be as much a crucible of mammon \u2014 the playground of outsize personalities as hard-bitten as the hardpan they pinned their fortunes on, and locus for epic feuds and dastardly schemes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The crazy water consumption practices have made me wonder if the end is nigh for California’s agricultural bounty. And, what that might mean for Midwest farmers. <\/p>\n
Well worth reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been reading Mark Arax’s terrific book: The Dreamt Land. A former resident and frequent visitor, I’ve long found California to be a fascinating place. Arax chronicles the posturing, economics, environmental cost and special interests behind Golden State water policies and practices: On the ground, it\u2019s hard to get a fix on the Central Valley; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7976,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7974\/revisions\/7976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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