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While Stockton has been down on its luck for as long as memory serves, many residents insist its fiscal crisis is a function of bad management during the flush years of the housing boom. Long an agricultural hub for Central Valley farms and situated about 80 miles (130 km) east of San Francisco, it went through a steady financial decline that saw its once thriving downtown hollowed out by poverty and crime. Scores of people decamped for the north of the city, or left altogether. Street gangs multiplied. Then, in the early 2000s, the housing boom drew developers back to the region in droves. Plush subdivisions went up overnight to attract families with easy credit who could not afford the Bay Area.
Prior to the housing boom, reckless spending on public-employee contracts put the city's long-term health at risk, according to active city officials. As coffers started to fill up from the swelling tax base, the sweetheart deals got sweeter. If an employee worked for one month, for instance, they and their spouses were eligible for retiree health care for life, a policy that had the predictable effect of moving people to quit working early. Today Stockton has 94 retirees with pensions of at least $100,000 a year, Reuters reported, amounting to twice the number of California towns its size. The city's long-term health liabilities alone amount to more than $400 million...