Los Banos grew by 42 percent between 2000 and 2010, to a population of 37,000. Over the same period bankrupt Stockton grew 22.2 percent to reach a population of 298,000.
Throughout the epoch when Great Boom that turned into the Great Bust, creating a major Economic Depression in the nation, worst of all in the northern San Joaquin Valley, city officials, staff, developers, landowners, bankers, realtors, corporate newspaper chains and chambers of commerce argued continually at the top of their collective lungs that “RESIDENTIAL GROWTH PAYS FOR ITSELF.”