Abstract: O n e OF THE FASCINATING things about the English language is the way that many words and phrases can be interpreted in multiple ways. Take the above title, for example. The final three words in its first half might easily suggest to the reader that I am attributing a certain degree of infallability to us Golden Staters, asserting that it is impossible for us to err. There might even be those outside our hallowed borders who would actually question such an implication. ; But, no, my intent is nothing so rash or egocentric. For those same three words can also be read another way. What my title really wishes to convey is that we thirty million fairly fallible folk in California can’t afford to be wrong. Wrong in what? In a sentence, wrong in the way we plan the future of our state, which even non-Californians will have to admit is one of the most critical, diverse, and fascinating pieces of real estate on earth. 1 To begin with, we must concede that a state population of thirty million (one shudders to add the words “for the present”) was