Last Sunday's LA Times Magazine featured an article about California's growth. Some people believe that it is desirable and even feasible to manage large-scale flows of labor and capital. Others cited in the article go so far as to say that the way to control these is to build high-speed rail between LA and SF (lately priced at $37 billion). Social engineering in its various guises was a fling, fashionable in the 19th and 20th centuries. We know better now -- but the news has apparently not yet reached some precincts.