December 18, 2011
On this episode of It’s Your Money and Your Life, hosts Richard Muscio and Joe Vecchio welcomed Vladimir (Vlad) Kogan, co-author (with Steven P. Erie and Scott A. MacKenzie) of Paradise Plundered: Fiscal Crisis and Governance Failures in San Diego (Stanford University Press, 2011).
Kogan, then a political scientist and Ph.D. candidate at UC San Diego (later a professor at The Ohio State University), joined the conversation to discuss the book’s detailed examination of how San Diego—once proudly marketed as “America’s Finest City”—went from “Futureville” to the cautionary label “Enron-by-the-Sea.”
The discussion covered the core findings of the book:
- The multi-billion-dollar pension deficit and chronic structural budget shortfalls that developed after the 1978 passage of Proposition 13.
- The mismatch between voter demand for services and resistance to the taxes needed to fund them.
- Weak public institutions, insulated downtown redevelopment deals, and poorly structured public-private partnerships.
- Inadequate investment in basic infrastructure, firefighting capacity (highlighted by major wildfires), airport and port facilities, and equitable services across the city’s economically diverse neighborhoods.
- Broader lessons for other California cities and for urban governance nationwide, where declining civic leadership, reduced watchdog capacity, and dysfunctional political institutions produced predictable fiscal stress.
Kogan and the hosts explored how San Diego’s experience reflected larger national trends that began in the 1970s and 1980s—growing distrust of government, short-term political incentives, and the difficulty of sustaining long-term fiscal discipline in a high-demand, low-tax environment. The conversation offered listeners a clear, evidence-based look at the city’s fiscal challenges and the governance choices that produced them.
Paradise Plundered draws on interviews with key decision-makers, public documents, and comparative analysis with other major California cities. It remains a key reference for understanding the structural roots of San Diego’s early-21st-century fiscal troubles.
Get the book:
Paradise Plundered: Fiscal Crisis and Governance Failures in San Diego on Amazon