Failing dreams: California faces its own Great Depression

It is less than 20 miles from the pristine surfing beaches of the California coast to a scene of Third World deprivation.


California has only 50,000 job openings a year for people with college degrees, yet 150,000 are graduating annually Photo: AFP/GETTY

By Nick Allen, Los Angeles
9:30PM BST 14 Oct 2011

In Skid Row, a grimy pocket of downtown Los Angeles, the prostrate forms of homeless people lie strewn across the pavements.

The lucky ones have tents for shelter but others make do with a sliver of cardboard for a bed and a supermarket trolley to carry their rags.

At the last police count 1,662 people live on these streets, twice as many as a year ago.

And now amid the drug addicts and the drunks there are families who not so long ago had homes and ordinary suburban lives.

“Los Angeles is re-experiencing the Great Depression,â€