AP

Today I am in Stockton, California. A lot of what you eat comes from Stockton, a major center of Central Valley agriculture. I wouldn't exactly call it a garden spot, but it has kind of come up in the world as an affordable commuter community for people working in Sacramento or even the Bay Area (an hour and a half away).

These days people here are losing money, as Stockton has become infamous as "The Foreclosure Capital." Several homes here have lawns best described as "foreclosure brown"--they haven't been watered in quite some time. Stockton isn't that far from where gold was first discovered in the Golden State. Ironically, it became a magnet for a new age of prospectors during the real estate boom.