California’s mountain lion faces ‘extinction vortex’

In general the changes emphasized community involvement and participation in the application and enforcement of policy. But they arguably made this too easy. Take the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA), for example. Under CEQA anyone can challenge a development project regardless of the direct effect on them, and there are effectively no repercussions for abusing this.

San Francisco is a microcosm of the statewide problem. Almost everything the city does, from infrastructure projects to permit approvals, requires "community input", which activists effectively use to drag out deliberations on even minor matters for years. The approval process for the biggest changes in the city, such as the towers downtown and the Mission Bay development projects, began in the 1990s. Notably that was before the two dotcom bubbles and the housing crisis made everybody city planning experts and community activists. Such large scale development would be strangled at birth by activists today even though they're merely replacing dirty industrial sites and adding net housing (as opposed to the pre-1980s projects that literally razed communities and kicked people out onto the streets--e.g. the I-Hotel[1]).

So I think the problem isn't crony capitalism--not generally. I think a better description of this is mob rule reflecting sanctimonious populism. Some companies have become quite adept at staying under the radar--not to avoid the law, but to avoid the attention of activists and communities.[2] But I don't think we should confuse that sort of bureaucratic sophistication with cronyism, graft, rule avoidance, and similar types of behavior. California isn't even remotely comparable to states like New Jersey, Illinois, or Alabama in this regard; California companies are angelic by comparison.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Hotel_(San_Franc...

[2] Political leaders do this too for entirely pure-of-heart reasons. It's little known that the long-term plan for the Great Highway along the west coast of SF is for it to be demolished. Rather than attempting to mitigate coastal erosion along the southern end, they're simply going to close it. They "schemed" with California officials and the Federal government (who controls the beach and, I think, the technically the highway itself) to develop an environmental plan to store the habitat. This nominally comports with the express wishes of California and San Francisco voters. But if people actually caught wind of this everybody would freak out because the Great Highway is now heavily trafficked, especially during commute hours. So AFAICT there's a "conspiracy" by city politicians, environmentalists, and the Feds to formalize and set into the motion the long-term plan before anyone notices to effectively challenge it.