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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStockton, California to file for bankruptcy
Stockton's city council voted six to one in favor of the 2012-2013 budget after a contentious five-hour meeting where angry retired city workers pressed council members to reject the $155 million spending plan. It proposes eliminating retirees' medical benefits to help fill a $26 million budget deficit.
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Stockton has also suffered a sharp drop in revenue since the collapse of its once red-hot housing market. The housing boom transformed the farming city into a distant bedroom community of the San Francisco Bay area and its bust put Stockton at or near the top of national foreclosure rankings in recent years.
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The $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal bond market has so far taken in stride Stockton's march toward bankruptcy despite the city's more than $700 million in bond debt. Bondholders and bond insurers are among Stockton's 18 creditors.
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Stockton has already defaulted on about $2 million in debt since February, allowing the trustee for one of its bond insurers to seize a building once slated to be its future city hall and three parking garages.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/27/economy-stockton-idUSL2E8HQ3XU20120627
Commuting from Stockton to the Bay Area? That must be fun! It's 60 miles to Hayward.
lame54
(35,324 posts)Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)That is an insane commute, but not uncommon here. There was a recent story about people who were living in ahouse in Santa Clara that had been subdivided into drywall cubicles so they could have a place closer to work that wasn't insanely expensive.
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)Went home on the weekends.
During the week he lived in the factory we worked at. He ate in the cafeteria and slept on the locker room benches.
Then he began working 12 hours a day 7 days a week and he stopped going home at all.
Finally he received an emergency call at the plant and he ran to the pay phone and called home to see what was up.
It was his wife. She told them there was going to be a fugging party at their house in Kentucky that weekend regardless of whether he was there or not.
He put in for some vacation time and went home.
True story.
Don
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)There are lots of jobs where you don't go home every night.
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Glad life has improved for people since then. Don't know why we would want to go back.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Construction worker, oil field hands, various contractors and consultants also work away from home for long periods.
Over the road truck drivers spend days to weeks away.
So even now, sleeping at home every night is not something that everyone does.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Not a lot of sailors in Silicon Valley.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)San Jose == 5,400 /sq mi
Brooklyn == 36,356 /sq mi
Due to limits on fossil fuel production and use, low density development is doomed.