Typically it is forward. That doesn't mean "better", but it does mean that it is moving things in directions that the rest of the country eventually follows.
Can you give an example of something California did that was a move backwards? As in, moving back to a way that we did things in the past but the rest of the country has moved on from?
Well, disposing of excrement in the street was a normal part of life in many cities. Now that rules about that are not enforced in California, it's becoming dangerous to simply walk in some parts of it.
I think you are confusing individual cities with the state as a whole. This is also far more of an issue with lack of resources rather than a general policy.
San Francisco's homeless issue has a lot to do with the fact that tolerance is not equally spread across the nation. If every city was equally tolerant, there wouldn't necessarily be more homeless total, but they'd be more evenly spread out across the nation. As it is, they tend to migrate here from other places.
That said, I've lived in SF for nearly 20 years and seen human poop on the sidewalks maybe twice.
Yeah I'm sure the homeless in New Jersey buy themselves plane tickets to SFO because the weather is better and nobody kicks them off the sidewalk where they would prefer to lay. Blame everyone else for San Francisco problems...
Can you give an example of something California did that was a move backwards? As in, moving back to a way that we did things in the past but the rest of the country has moved on from?