California and Texas are the 2 best states in the Union

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Still, over the course of the current recovery, both states have seen economic growth that most of the rest of the country would envy. California has led the U.S. in job creation, adding 2.3 million nonfarm jobs since January 2010. Texas is in second place, with 1.8 million jobs. Between them they're responsible for 28 percent of national employment growth. That's partly just because they're the two most populous states, but they're also among the top states in percentage employment growth.

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What is the California-Texas secret? Well, most obviously, it's that, as economic activity in the U.S. has become increasingly concentrated in a few big, vibrant metropolitan areas, they are both states with big, vibrant metropolitan areas. Of the 10 biggest urban agglomerations in the U.S., two (Los Angeles and San Jose-San Francisco) are in California and two (Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston) are in Texas. Each state also has two others in the top 35

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Why did these cities develop in California and Texas, and why do they exercise such attractive force? A lot of it is surely dumb luck, but I think there is an important common thread (and this is where I'm going to haul out my particular ideological ax). In past decades, private- and public-sector leaders in both California and Texas made big investments in their states' futures that have paid off richly. As a result of investments in higher education, for example, California and Texas lead the nation in the number of institutions on the brand-new ShanghaiRanking 2016 list of the world's top research universities:

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