Los Angeles’s devastating wildfires have prompted a series of troubling questions, ranging from the city and county’s reported lack of preparedness and apparently outdated water infrastructure to the crisis-management skills of state and local leaders. And are those same leaders capable of rebuilding both swiftly and in a commonsense manner, as opposed to years of regulatory gridlock?

Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to reflect on lessons learned from the wildfires, the impact on various political fortunes, plus can a Los Angeles already under pressure to present a more idealized version of itself in advance of the 2028 Summer Olympics – i.e., fewer homeless encampments, flowing traffic – remind the world that California is still capable of accomplishing great engineering tasks (unlike, say, the state’s failed experiment with high-speed rail)?

Recorded on January 30, 2025.