Can Philanthropy Save a City?

STOCKTON, Calif.—The philanthropists came on air-conditioned buses from big cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. They were driven past vacant lots overrun with weeds, auto-repair shops and fast-food restaurants and meat markets, and deposited at a construction site that had once held a liquor store that police had long tried to shut down because it was dominated by drug dealers. And there, they were asked for money: money to pair single mothers with case managers, money to provide low-income families with a “word pedometer” and biweekly coaching from trained home visitors, money for mental-health clinicians and anti-violence counselors and college coaches and green spaces and sustainable-food hubs and a psychotherapy center. All together, the philanthropists were told, the opportunities to invest in Stockton totaled $28.6 million dollars. “I truly believe that in the next 20 years, Stockton will be a model city for urban transformation,” the mayor, Michael Tubbs, said to the crowd.

Tubbs, who,” as put it (). He came in with big plans, including a project that has made national headlines. But this careful courting of philanthropists may be his biggest swing yet.