Fresno!

Surprise! Fresno is the most populous city in the Central Valley of California. Yep, bigger than Sacramento. Almost half a million people live within the city limits. If you through in the surrounding communities, the population is greater than the entire state of Wyoming.

It takes about 3:30 to drive to Fresno from either San Francisco or Los Angeles. Amtrak takes a bit under four hours and the fare is $92 roundtrip. Picking a date about a month away from the writing of this entry, and including a Saturday overnight, a roundtrip ticket to fly to Fresno from SFO would cost a bit over $500. A trip from LAX to Fresno would be a bit better, at about $400 roundtrip. For comparison, SFO to LAX would be $150.

The largest city in the Central Valley is isolated. This makes it unattractive for companies to locate there and stunts interaction between Fresno and the other major population centers of the state. Fresno is orphaned.

High speed rail would change this. Fresno would be 1:15 from San Francisco and 1:20 from LA. This drastic increase in accessibility would do wonders for the economy of Fresno. Connected into the economy of the state, higher skill jobs would be made available to Fresnoites through firms seeking to expand their businesses in California but constrained by the higher cost of doing business in the coastal cities. In other words, businesses that would otherwise leave California could stay in the state and provide new opportunities for people in the Central Valley.

Or, we could ignore the cities of the Central Valley, as we do now, and continue to ignore so much of California's future.