The US town that pays you just to be there
By James Titcomb
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Stockton is only a little over an hour’s drive from the gleaming Silicon Valley headquarters of Google, Apple and Facebook, but it feels light years away.
A key trading outpost for the Argonauts chasing riches during the Gold Rush, this century its name has usually come up for the wrong reasons.
Michael Tubbs was the mayor of Stockton when the project launched.
Credit:AP
After suffering more foreclosures than any other US city during the subprime crisis, Stockton declared bankruptcy in 2012, then the biggest city in America to do so. Policing cuts followed, and the city became notorious for crime. Today, house prices remain below their 2006 peak and unemployment and homelessness remain high.
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Speaking from the White House Rose Garden on Friday, President Biden took a moment to reflect on the true impact of his administration’s humongous $1.9-trillion coronavirus relief package, also known as the American Rescue Plan.
“It changes the paradigm for the first time in a long time,” he told reporters and Democratic lawmakers. “This bill puts working people in this nation first.”
Rejecting the trickle-down economics favored by Republicans since Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, Biden added: “It’s time that we build an economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out. And this bill shows that when you do that, everybody does better.”
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Stockton, in California, suffered more foreclosures during the subprime crisis than any other US city and was declared bankrupt in 2012
Credit: Kim White/Telegraph
The city of Stockton in California is a little more than an hour’s drive from the gleaming Silicon Valley headquarters of Google, Apple and Facebook, but it feels light years away.
Its heyday was arguably the mid 19th century, when its direct river access to the thousands arriving in San Francisco from around the world made it a key trading outpost for the argonauts chasing riches during the Gold Rush. But in this century, its name has usually come up for the wrong reasons.