What are some of the conditions that make governing California difficult and possibly "exceptional?"

What will be an ideal response?

Although this question is addressed throughout the book, the short answer is that California's problems exist on a massive scale: it is "hyper-diverse" with respect to demographics, geography, society, politics, and economics. In other words, among the U.S. states California contains the largest population, largest economy, most diverse landscapes and land uses, and tremendous racial and ethnic diversity. (Students might provide some details about the state's characteristics here.) These conditions combine to create complex issues that require long-range solutions, careful planning, and sometimes consensus and compromise, yet these are difficult to achieve in a state where citizens fundamentally distrust politicians and have the means to take matters into their own hands (i.e., through direct democracy). Some of the issues that respondents might mention are immigration, climate change, budgetary issues (taxation, balancing budgets), economic conditions (unemployment, recession or relative prosperity), prison populations or prison population reduction (realignment), and infrastructure needs. The state's Democratic Party leanings also distinguish it from other states: 61.7% of Californians voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Democrats possessed supermajority status in both houses of the legislature as of 2016.