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Shantytown, Stockton, California, USA
I made a visit to Stockton, California the other day and came across a jarring sight: an actual shantytown, here in America.
(Click on images for a larger view. Note: all images are Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International by chumbawamba@zerohedge)
This is at the corner of S Grant Street and E Worth Street. To give some geolocational context, this is the start of the neighborhood literally next door to the shantytown:
Here's more of the shantytown, which is sprawled out over several acres, with lots of empty space in between each hovel (for now at least...plenty of room for development!) The first photo is around the corner from the part shown above as viewed from S Stanislaus Street. The second is a few hundred feet away as seen from E Hazelton Avenue:
You'll recall that the City of Stockton declared bankruptcy in 2013. I've had business in Stockton since about 2009, primarily around the dead center of the downtown, and the place is definitely depressed. A lot of small businesses in and around the downtown are closed. A small general store that I patronized to make photocopies one day wasn't there when I needed copies made a few months later. It's hard to even find a convenience or liquor store to get something as simple as a soda. The only place I see doing a bustling business is the county courthouse, and the surrounding legal firms and notaries. I think Stockton will eventually recover, as there are a lot of good real estate deals to be had, and they've made some infrastructure investments and improvements (primarily in prettying up the downtown harbor area with a nice cinema and shops) but any real recovery is probably not going to come until private money starts to flow in to re-develop this old, large and very interesting city. But what do I know. It might just get worse and stay a shithole for decades, like Detroit.
After I got back home I did a search and found this report on a local Fox News affiliate (includes video of the shantytown) from July 10 of this year. It includes this quote:
"People don’t get moved out they’ll sort of set up shop for awhile,” Jon Mendelson, the Associate Director with Central Valley Housing told FOX40. The Central Valley Housing Organization said a lack of shelters and support programs may be contributing to these semi-permanent communities.
"Well the tents and shantytowns are certainly not a permanent solution,” Mendelson claimed.
The organization said a more viable option would be to provide housing and rehabilitation programs.
"It includes just basic life skills and support that a lot of folks on the streets don’t have right now,” Mendelson told us.
They want to teach these people "basic life skills"? I'd say the ability to assemble your own shelter (if crude) is a basic life skill. These people don't need social services, they need a fucking revolution in government, as do we all. The Banksters that have commandeered our government created this fucking disgrace.
I've traveled a fair bit to various parts of the world and have seen shantytowns in the Middle East and central and South America, so it's not like I haven't witnessed something like this before. But when I accidentally came across this shantytown right here in America--the ostensibly "greatest nation on earth"--it was a disconcerting sight. I know we had tent cities form at the peak of the last crisis a few years ago, but this is a straight up shantytown: destitute people making shelters with whatever garbage they can find. As an aside, it should come as no surprise that the streets around this area are filled with hookers, drug dealers, and all manner of shady characters.
A big part of this, I'm sure, is the lack of affordable housing anywhere. These people are just at the last rung of the housing ladder. Housing prices in California (for both sales and rentals) are at all time highs. It's ridiculous. I see shacks in the part of the SF Bay Area where I live renting for $500+/mo.
A big component of this price inflation in housing we have now is the result of unchecked American consumption throughout the 2000s. Sow and reap. Follow me now: the Fed made credit cheap, everyone partook of the credit binge buffet and bought enormous loads of shit like new cars, boats, vacation homes, etc. All this shit (or major components of) was manufactured in China. Americans sent gobs of money to China which, in return, sent back gobs of cheap products and raw materials. So Americans became shit rich but money poor, and the Chinese (the connected ones at least) became nigger rich. Now, these newly rich Chinese with more dollars than they know what to do with, trying to keep them from the clutches of the Chinese government (understandably so), are coming to America with their piles of dollars, and what are they doing with them? Investing in American real estate. Paying cash for million dollar houses, bidding them up 50-100% over asking price. So as a result we have $2 million shacks for sale in Palo Alto, and shantytowns in Stockton.
I saw this coming years ago. Jim Willie talked about a "Chinese colonization" in his newsletters, and that's exactly what is happening. I don't believe it's a concerted strategical move by China (though it could be) but rather the result of an organic move of capital naturally fleeing a despotically greedy regime. Whatever the case, the fact remains the Chinese are taking over California real estate (and I believe single-handedly propping up Tesla), and pricing natives (like me) out of the market, and at the lower end of the spectrum the result of this inflation is shantytowns. Oh well, this is still (if vaguely) a capitalist system. I don't complain, I just wait for the next down cycle (I believe we're peaking now), and will take advantage of Chinese dumping their formerly very desirable California properties for whatever they can get, just like the Japanese had to do in the early 90s after they bought up the USA with all their imported dollars (acquired selling cheap shit to the USA from the 70s through the 80s) and forgot or were just too ignorant to understand that things work in cycles: what goes up shall eventually come down. History doesn't always repeat, but it rhymes, so I'll be a patient boy and wait in the shadows for the next trough.
In the meantime, I expect to see this shantytown expand. Perhaps some cash rich Chinese will come in and buy up the best plots.
I am Chumbawamba.
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I'm liking Hudson Bay, Canada more and more with each passing day.
Manitouwadge, Ontario is nice... A little south of H Bay.
Hudson Bay. Too damn cold.
Try Cuenca, Ecuador if you are willing to learn Spanish (or don't need to learn).
looks like lots of space for the Sasquatch to set up a lunch program
and for her bathhouse lovin' hubby (shhhhhh!) to organize some "save shantytown" protest groups
when the street cleaner comes ...............
Thanks Chawa - I'm at a loss for words.
@NFP: You must not get around much if this is the first view of a homeless encampment you've witnessed. These can be viewed at almost anyplace a city meets up with open space in California. Suburban riparian jungles are a favorite place as they stay out of sight for the most part but have easy access to ebt accepting vendors, shopping carts and street corner begging stations. Sacramento, Redding, Santa Rosa, Bay Area and North, East, South Bay areas have hundreds of such they are just hidden in the trees and brush.
Great securitization opportunity? USD1m++ tents and trash combined.
The economists would be so proud: "leadership" at its finest.
But then: http://verbewarp.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/its-not-economy-stupid-its-econ...
Ho hum
Looks quite clean for a shanty town.
Wait till it expands, non-shanty stockton is a shithole
Wait till it expands,…
So now you’re in my neck of the woods. Stockton’s a great place to be from. It’s central location allows one to wake up in the morning, and after breakfast to take a drive to Reno, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Muir Woods, Napa, Lake Almanor, or any number of other “destinations” and arrive well before noon, have lunch and spend the rest of the day enjoying wherever one landed before taking an equally delightful drive home to spend the night in one’s own bed.
Your travels to our version of the Tenderloin showcases what’s left of the thriving produce / railroad industry that developed our city in the early and mid-20th century. We’re an inland seaport with a 40 foot channel connected to the Golden Gate 80 miles to our west and only 14 feet above sea level.
We are one of 2 places McD’s targets to try their new menu items due to our demographics, (not that this is a good thing), but it says a lot about the number of ethnicities represented in this community. Sometimes I think we should have our own version of Disney’s “It’s a Small World” boat ride along the Delta to show the wide variety of survival techniques people display from the gated country club boat docks to the plastic tarp island dwellers literally on the other side of the slough.
All in all, I believe we’ll survive this upcoming storm, we’ve weathered dopey politicians, priestly misconduct, school and drive by shootings, criminal banking practices, relentless drug and prostitution activities, booms and busts in every constructive / destructive flavor and yet the sun still rises.
Notice all that blue sky?
Jmf.
Stockton’s a great place to be from.
Keyword in that sentence is FROM
Yes, I read that sentence the exact same way.
Chicago is also a great place to be from.
There's nothing wrong with Stockton, or California, that leaving it won't fix.
Another sign of "Hope and Change."
actually this is just another indication of unlimited growth not being possible on a finite planet.
the captain of the titanic really doesnt mater, nor does the position of the deck chairs.
Might want to check your city's or Stockton's master development plan. I sit on planning and zoning in the small city where I live. We are fairly easy to live with partly because we have plenty of space. However, there are places that don't especially want to issue buildng permits for new single family developments. San Francisco apparently has bought into the sustainable development idea that single family homes are greedy and wasteful or something. Sustainable city development plans tend to be in the packed tight and tall mode. The tall part doesn't sound too brilliant for a city in a seismically active zone.
Stockton may have made themselves too unfriendly for anyone who may want to build or start a business. Lower and midlevel bureaucrats seem to be especially adept at running off builders and small businessmen.
Moar "Green Shoots"!
OT, BoP - but did M2M take a powder...? Sure looks that way. Shucks...
I imagine he got tired of being bitch slapped every week, lol.
Seriously, I have no idea why a Wall Street bankster like him (Brown Brothers Harriman, HSBC, Mellon) would ever want to post here at ZH.
https://www.bbh.com/wps/portal/ourfirm/contactus/ourpeople/chandlermarc/
This must be "Liftoff."
... or maybe those folks have all their money "sitting on the sidelines" instead?
Say what you will, I'd live in a shantytown, more or less for free, before I'd take many hundreds, if not thousands, of my meager supply of dollars, and give them over to a landlord or bank to rent or by an apartment or house.
I lived in a tent for years. In the forest. Next to a lake.
I got up when I wanted. Did what I wanted. Was as well off as if I were rich. Never went hungry. Never went without.
My tax return for the last year I did so (admittedly almost 40 years ago) showed gross income of $996. For the year.
God willing, we'll all return to those simple days of canvas roofs, and lake views.
Welcome to Detroit 2.0
In my neck of the woods they are called Obamaville .....
What's the matter? Palo Alto isn't offering up any land for the homeless?
I see youve never been to East Palo Alto...
The black family was demolished between 1964 and 2004. The chaos you see now is near the end game, and while Whites may not yet realize it, Black America is gearing up for the Elite-Promoted/Funded race war.
It will catch many, many urban and suburban Whites by complete surprise.
Now it is the turn of the White family to be demolished by the Elites. This has been happening since at least 2004-2008 with the housing boom (suckering in the last of Gen X) and subsequent crash and financial crisis. Now many Gen Xers have waited too long and skipped over family entirely and Millennials are not exactly chomping at the bit to start them (even if they could).
The visible manifestations of this are that Drugs, Welfare, and Single Motherhood have spread like a cancer into the White community, and quite rapidly.
This is all bankster driven.
"Black America is gearing up for the Elite-Promoted/Funded race war. It will catch many, many urban and suburban Whites by complete surprise." That's what Charlie Manson thought in the 60's.
The globalists, multinational corporations and bankers .... this is their 'vision'. They call it 'leveling the playing field'. Poverty for the masses is critical for elites. Powerlessness thru policy and abandoning principles and integrity ...
I thought that was Chicago 1.0
chumbawamba
Nice job of journalism.
There are more shantytowns scattered about the USA than most might suspect. But beyond question the problem is growing worse.
Obamavilles...
The shantytowns in and of themelves are not the problem. They are simply visible manifestations of the problem.
Thanks Chumba for the writing.
I would encourage other brilliant persons, such as Jack Burton, El Vaquero and Latina Lover to write and post an article to ZH.
We see in this article, again, a reference to the Japanese experience a couple decades ago. But Chumby knows about this. You know about this. Even I know about this.
What makes us think the Chinese do not?
Do you think they perhaps have some ancient Chinese secret for preventing a real estate bubble from eventually popping? Unless they somehow have a direct line to the Creator and can make a miracle happen, I can't see how they're going to avoid it. Cycles: they're not just a theory.
-Chumblez.
"This time is different," remember?
There's an important difference. The Japanese have never been a major immigrant source. Japanese overseas investment in the 80's and 90's was almost entirely commercially oriented and highly leveraged. When their market collapsed they had to liquidate overseas assets to shore up domestic balance sheets.
The money coming out of China is part of a genuine immigration wave of people seeking a better life. Granted, there are financial elements front running the trend - you see this in the massive overdevelopment of condos - but the greater trend is people leaving China for keeps, just as my family left Britain in the 60's, and for similar reasons.
Secret economic development plan of Chinese communist party:
Wi bai yu xian ti taun, bi lu ding su kai su ku rei pa! Mei ni Chai na xi ti zen mo bing tsu Meiguo.
We used to call it Barrio Stocktone as kids...Sacramento is 10 times nicer, thank gawd.
Nearby in California is town call "Los Baños". What is meaning of this?
Here, this will make you feel better.
With apologies to Jonathan Edwards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1TpeMt8aF4
;-D