Almost exactly 11 years ago, Stockton became the largest U.S. city to file bankruptcy. When it filed for Chapter 9 protections, Stockton was staring down over $2 billion in long-term debt. But things have turned around in the decade since. In 2018, Stockton was named one of the most fiscally healthy cities in the nation.
Stockton is one of four communities examined by Stanford Law Professor Michelle Wilde Anderson in her book, “The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America.”
From the description:
A sweeping and eye-opening study of wealth inequality and the dismantling of local government in four working-class US cities that passionately argues for reinvestment in people-centered leadership and offers "a welcome reminder of what government can accomplish if given the chance" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Some of these discarded places are rural. Others are big cities, small cities, or historic suburbs. Some vote blue, others red. Some are the most diverse communities in America, while others are nearly all white, all Latino, or all Black. All are routinely trashed by outsiders for their poverty and their politics. Mostly, their governments are just broke. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take.
In this "astute and powerful vision for improving America" (Publishers Weekly), urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places. But this book is not a eulogy or a lament. Instead, Anderson travels to four blue-collar communities that are poor, broke, and progressing. Networks of leaders and residents in these places are facing down some of the hardest challenges in American poverty today…
The book won Anderson the 2023 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize last month. Watch Anderson’s remarks at the annual Zócalo event here (Anderson is introduced at 7:27). You can also listen to her interview on the GovLove podcast.