The curdling of California and Gavin’s party

In November 2023, downtown San Francisco underwent a sudden transformation. Its streets were power washed, graffiti was erased, trash was cleared, and the city’s sizable homeless population was relocated. For a city grappling with a mass exodus fueled by these very problems, the cleanup revealed that it was never a matter of feasibility but rather a lack of political will that was to blame for the city’s condition. Public officials who insisted such efforts were impossible, in an instant, demonstrated that a cleaner, safer city was always within reach.

Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All; By Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter; Center Street; 304 pp., $30.00

However, the reason for the cleanup

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