Commentary: Stockton's basic income idea is getting attention. But will it uplift anyone?
Just driving through a couple of blocks near downtown Stockton, Calif. - over bridges, down Martin Luther King Boulevard, within eyesight of the San Joaquin River - showed me why this Central Valley city of 300,000 has such a rundown reputation. There was a man passed out against a wall, a brown bag just barely covering up his tall boy. Trash-strewn main streets. People loitered around abandoned buildings while guarding shopping carts that towered with sundries.
In the popular imagination, Stockton is the Detroit of California. The only thing
