Merced, Where California Stores Its Big Plans
Unfinished Dreams for High-Speed Rail and Higher Education Falter Statewide But Find a Home in the Central Valley
Have any grand but unfocused ambitions? Have an idea but no strategy to execute it? How about any half-finished projects clogging up your garage?
Send them to Merced. That’s what the state of California does.
Perhaps this is because it’s so convenient: a city of 83,000 people in the center of the Central Valley, and so close to our most hallowed outdoor place that it’s called the “Gateway to Yosemite.” But whatever the reason, Merced is taking on a role as the self-storage unit for California’s abandoned dreams.
Earlier this month …
