California

"On the West Coast, California has springlike weather all year round, and residents tend toward outdoor living. For example, most California homes are designed on the principle of blending with nature. Population density is low; everyone has a car and enjoys ample freedom of movement. The freedom between indoor and outdoor living brought by this climate, and the mobility freedom provided by cars, influence California’s work and lifestyle habits. California engineers are the least constrained by traditional notions of going to work on schedule. Generally speaking, they are no less diligent than people elsewhere in the United States. They can work in the factory until late at night, but they are unwilling to go to work punctually in the morning. They are willing to think deeply about work problems at home, on the golf course, or on a yacht, but they are unwilling to commit to having to work a certain number of hours each week. Toward their bosses, their attitude is relatively casual, even arrogant. The object of their loyalty is the work, not the boss or the company. Toward compensation, their attitude is quite realistic; they will haggle over every detail, and most young people have the dream of getting rich overnight, so their turnover rate is also higher than in other regions. They lack discipline but are full of vitality; they lack loyalty to people and organizations, but they do not lack commitment to their profession. If such talent can be well guided, it can become a group full of creativity and drive. If leadership is poor, it becomes a rabble."

"The year 2008 offers a direct comparison between California’s speed and China’s speed. That year, California voters approved a state proposition to fund a high-speed rail link between San Francisco and Los Angeles; also that year, China began construction of its high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai. Both lines would be around eight hundred miles long upon completion. China opened the Beijing–Shanghai line in 2011 at [a cost of $36 billion](private://read/01k3jwt46q240aq6fe12mqkyr0/16_Notes.xhtml#_idTextAnchor281). In its first decade of operation, it completed [1.35 billion passenger trips](private://read/01k3jwt46q240aq6fe12mqkyr0/16_Notes.xhtml#_idTextAnchor282). California has built, seventeen years after the ballot proposition, a small stretch of rail to connect two cities in the Central Valley, neither of which are close to San Francisco or Los Angeles."