Yup. It was a paradise, wasn't it? My uncle got there in the 30's; wish I could have seen it then. Even in the 60s and 70s, when I was a kid, it was an almost mythical place of prosperity and possibility, with dear old Ronald Reagan as governor.
For nearly 400 years the most stubborn, independent people in our country kept moving West. Fifty years ago, if you wanted to see the descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans, you would look to the leading edge of westward migration in California, not Massachusetts. Now the looters and moochers and loafers who followed the pioneers have swamped the entire country except for a few pockets in the Midwest and Rockies.
The first big wave in memory of East moving West came in the 1960's with the Summer of Love & Haight-Ashbury, but the Hippies mostly dispersed and disappeared into the mountains of California, Oregon & Washington.
The second big wave came in the 1970's & 1980's -- the New Yorkers came to Southern California "for the weatha', honey" even though they'd freely tell you they thought EVERYTHING --from pizza to driving to politics -- was better in NY. And the tight-lipped New Englanders came to the Santa Clara Valley, turning it into Silicon Valley. Thousands came from Massachusetts, from a company called DEC to Silicon Valley. These were educated and skilled professionals in technology --conservative in dress, but really screwed up when it came to values.
It seemed like in a very short time --between the late 70's to mid 1980's I didn't recognize my home State anymore. California culture of politeness and friendliness was disappearing in favor of the run-you-over-with-a-shopping-cart mentality and grab whatever you can get. And East-Coast people started lecturing us about "political correctness".
In retrospect, we should have closed the borders of California to the rest of the US in about 1980 and we'd have been better off -- not in the short-run economically because we'd never have had the boom years, but culturally. We could have turned around California after Jerry Brown's "save the spotted housefly" reign in the 1970's but not after so many East Coasters just fell in love with idiot & his politics. We started moving further and further Left from there.
Hindsight is always 20/20 -- and completely useless.