California Suffers Most Cities in Decline
APRIL 1, 2011
By WAYNE LUSVARDI
Facetiously speaking, Gov. Jerry Brown couldn’t have picked a better time to put taxes on the ballot, rather than work out a budget deal with the Republicans in the State Legislature.
The economy is getting worse for many cities in the United States, but California takes the cake — the pineapple upside down cake, that is — for the most cities where things are likely to get worse.
Forbes magazine just finished compiling a list of Where the Economy May Get Worse and California has six of the worse seven cities. To give you an idea of how bad it is getting in California, the situation is like a layer cake: three California city layers on the top, three on the bottom — with Detroit the filling in the middle.
THE WORST OF THE WORST LIST OF CITIES
| City | Unemployment Rate | Mortgages 90-Plus Days Delinquent | 12-Month Home Price Forecast | 2011 Net Migration Projection | Job Growth Projection |
| Riverside-San Bernardino | 13.9% | 8.21% | 1% increase | 4,110 residents leaving | 0.69% |
| Stockton | 18% | 7.78% | 1% decrease | 620 residents leaving | 0.54% |
| Detroit | 13.3% | 5.42% | 2% decrease | 1,340 residents leaving | 0.53% |
| Los Angeles | 11.7% | 5.53% | 1% increase | 7,880 residents leaving | 0.88% |
| Bakersfield | 16.2% | 6.85% | 3% decrease | 311 residents incoming | 0.21% |
| San Francisco-Oakland | 10.1% | 4.17% | No change | 3,030 residents leaving | 0.94% |
| Sacramento | 12.1% | 5.83% | 2%
decrease |
1,270 residents incoming | 0.55% |
Except for Los Angeles, on the above list, four other California cities — Riverside-San Bernardino, Stockton, Bakersfield and Sacramento — all have declining home prices. So as Gov. Jerry Brown continues trying to raise taxes on sales taxes, auto license fees and incomes, taxpayers’ home values are plummeting in most areas of the state.
Las Vegas, Nevada has the highest mortgage delinquency rate in America. But 13,000 people are expected to move into the city next year. How many of them may be California government retirees was not estimated.
Moody’s Economy.com compiled the data for Forbes magazine. Moody’s is also one of the largest municipal bond-rating firms in the U.S. and rates California’s municipal bonds.
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer has pulled California out of the municipal bond market temporarily. We can now see why. Lockyer apparently doesn’t want bond interest rates based on Moody’s bond ratings reflecting a worsening economy in California.
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