Rachael Myrow here, host of the California Report, with an AM post from somewhere else in California. We're in this Golden State together. Right?
Ever since Vallejo settled its bankruptcy situation, Stockton has become the new poster child for the California city careening into insolvency.
On the one hand, Stockton has so much going for it. Cover your eyes, urban planners: the Central Valley city is close enough (80 miles east) to count as a suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area. It's got colorful history dating back to the Gold Rush era, a natural inland seaport, and lots of hot weather ... for those who like hot weather.
Did I mention it's a suburb? You could say that blessing is at the heart of Stockton's current crisis. During the housing boom, the real estate market soared, as people who work close to the coast fled East in search of lawns and a reasonably priced third bedroom. City leaders signed off on generous public employee union contracts and took on big debt to fund a big redevelopment project on the waterfront.
Then, the housing market crashed. As NPR's Richard Gonzales put it on Weekend Edition Sunday recently, "Those homes that sold for more than $400,000 are now going for less than $150,000."