Santa Monica Mirror: Starting with the day in January 1848 when gold flakes and nuggets first turned up at Sutter's Mill northeast of Sacramento, California has seen plenty of economic miracles, each focused in a different part of the state.
The Gold Rush brought more than 300,000 people to the state, previously a sleepy outpost. The movie industry was the next big miracle, bringing international attention to Southern California for the first time.
The dot.com phenomenon of the 1990s put the spotlight on Silicon...