alt Hacker News> California and other areas were not developed on their own, they required years of sustained federal investment and interest in the area.
In a similar way, Western Europe benefited from a lot of investment after WW2, while Eastern Europe didn't receive the same investment then.
So the recent investment OP mentioned is just balancing the scales.
World War II significantly contributed to the development of the West Coast of the United States mid century. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle harbors became crucial to the war effort in the pacific, leading to industrial expansion and the establishment of the UC system and the junior colleges in California, which eventually led to Silicon Valley, also the large water projects built 50-60 years earlier and the the transcontinental railroads built 50 years prior also didn’t hurt the expansion and growth of the West Coast of the United States either.
Building useful infrastructure, in the can do America of the past worked, the parasitic AI data centers currently, however, appear to be a financial dead end.
That era of America appears to be gone at the Federal level, infrastructure, schools, science, medicine, college, vaccines, voting etc. etc. don’t appear to be on the current menu.