The question is how they will use it. More than any other state, California reflects the nation's changing demographic, economic, and political realities. If metropolitan-wide approaches are the wave of the future, then nowhere is that strategy more appropriate than in California. Inland Empire, it is hard to know where the cities end and the suburbs begin. Many California cities were small towns, even rural communities, only a decade or so ago.
States can play at least three important roles in improving metropolitan areas.
First, they can help cities and suburbs address their fiscal dilemmas. Second, they can help make communities more livable by dealing with infrastructure, traffic congestion, pollution, and parks. Finally, states can help support working families, especially those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, many of whom live in distressed neighborhoods in cities and older suburbs. Helping Cities Pay Their Bills Many localities are in a fiscal bind. Improving management can help, but in most cases cities' fiscal problems are structural.