By James Flanigan
Los Angeles Times
June 30, 1991

Americans looking at news reports might think that little has changed in the Middle East as a result of the Gulf War.

Saddam Hussein, although reduced in power, remains on top in Iraq. The Kuwaitis are back in their homeland, but like the Bourbon kings after the French Revolution, they seem in some ways to have “learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has stated publicly that the war has left the region “unchanged.” (more…)

By James Flanigan
Los Angeles Times
January 8, 1995

By now, it’s a familiar story. Mexico rises toward world-class development. And then disaster strikes. Why does it keep dashing its own best hopes?

This was supposed to be a time of deliverance for Mexico’s 90 million people-a new period of growth, job creation and rising living standards. Rewards for good behavior were anticipated because cutbacks and reforms in the last six years had reduced inflation from 159% a year to less than 10%. (more…)

By James Flanigan
Los Angeles Times
June 7, 1998

To begin to grasp the full import and direction of the changes occurring in China today, visit the Beijing Yanhua Petrochemical Co. at a sprawling complex about an hour’s drive from China’s capital city.

Yanhua, a subsidiary of a government-owned chemical enterprise, was created last year to expand output of ethylene, a basic material for plastics, and of butadiene styrene rubber, a material for tires. (more…)

By James Flanigan
Los Angeles Times
March 5, 2001

In these uncertain times, venture capital investors still look with favor on Pasadena, attracted by the “hard science” work at Caltech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Huntington Medical Research Institute, the nearby City of Hope and other institutions.

As a result, Pasadena and neighboring communities are budding hotbeds of new companies pursuing discoveries in biotechnology, optical electronics and computer and material sciences. Some 100 Pasadena companies are in high-technology businesses, local officials estimate. (more…)

By James Flanigan
Los Angeles Times
November 23, 2003

The Next Big Thing is very small. Exactly one-billionth of a Thing.

That is a nano, and nanotechnology is the thing you’ll being hearing a lot about in coming years. The science of working at atomic dimensions to engineer materials and machines out of individual molecules will transform industry and medicine. (more…)

By James Flanigan
Los Angeles Times
July 3, 2005

The Fourth of July weekend seems like a good time to examine some of the heat and rhetoric lately surrounding one of the basic building blocks of our society: immigration.

There is widespread concern that too many immigrants are coming in and, worse, that waves of unskilled workers will form a permanent underclass and change the historic dynamic of American society. (more…)

Thirty-five years ago, a billboard announced to the world: “Smile Los Angeles! You’re the Center of the Universe.” Hyperbolic at the time, today, this exaggeration comes close to reality. While Southern California is not at the literal center of the universe, it is nevertheless an eye-popping illustration of our globalizing world.

Over the course of forty years of reporting, author James Flanigan has written about Southern California for such publications as Forbes and the New York Times. In Smile Southern California!, Flanigan provocatively distills his experiences with and knowledge of the region, arguing that Southern California is an economic model for the United States and the world. With clarity and precision, Flanigan examines numerous pillars of the region’s growth, including dynamic entrepreneurship; the rapid growth of international trade,; the harnessing and development of new technologies; and the evolution of the entertainment industry. He assesses the achievements of the region’s people, businesses, and institutions. The text highlights the influx of immigrants to Southern California, and discusses these people’s role in building local businesses and bringing capital to the region. Flanigan concludes the book by looking past the boundaries of today and into to the economic opportunities and challenges of tomorrow–for Southern California and America.

Throughout the book, Flanigan weaves in numerous interviews that bring to life the economic forces that he describes. Most valuable are the stories that he shares of businesspeople–well and less known–who demonstrate where our economy stands and where it is heading.

Smile Southern California! delivers more than a “pat on the back” for the inhabitants of Los Angeles and its environs; it offers an insider’s view on Southern California, valuable insights for readers with an eye on the economy, and an exciting story full of real people and triumphs to boot!

“Thanks to this lively investigation by one of the nations most highly regarded business reporters, we can better understand how off-shore investment, technology, decentralization, can-do entrepreneurialism and sheer panache have created one of the strongest economies on the planet as well as a working model for American competition in a global age.” –Kevin Starr, University of

“Few experts understand Southern California’s dynamism better than Jim Flanigan. He’s poured all that understanding into this book and given us a great read about one of the world’s most important economies.” –Michael Milken, Chairman, The Milken Institute

“The author is a recognized journalistic authority on the topic. This study offers a refreshing view of Southern California, painting biographical narratives on a background canvas of important economic data.” –William Deverell, Director, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (more…)

Order James Flanigan’s recently released book “Smile Southern California, You’re the Center of the Universe” at Amazon.com, Borders, Barnes & Noble and other fine booksellers.

I was thinking that the big Oscar winner “Slumdog Millionaire” is the perfect picture to speak to this terrible time in the world economy not only because it recalls the Busby Berkeley musicals that cheered gloomy masses in the 1930s Depression, but because it exemplifies the energy and ambition of India and other developing countries today. It reflects the strongest global trend of our times, economic and social development.

Of course energy and ambition, not to mention economic development, are on hold right now. And one may hear doubts that the poor–and the rich–economies can recover economic growth anytime soon. But I believe otherwise. The vast societies of India and China and others that have been arduously trying to create better living standards in recent decades will take a beating for a time but they won’t cease or deny their dreams. They are not about to say “Oh, a better life was but an illusion and we must now return to the hard realities of centuries.” No, not at all. Rather, they will endure hardships as they have for generations but continue with risen hope because they see the promise of the new economies. They see how advances of technology, from the coming of computers and the Internet to modern medicine and bioscience, have made even their lives better. (more…)