Coming Sunday: San Bernardino: Broken City
As other California cities lift themselves out of the recession, San Bernardino, once a blue-collar town with a solid middle class, has become the poorest city of its size in the state and a distillation of the challenges facing many American urban areas.
The city of San Bernardino, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, was once an unassuming town where working-class people could reasonably aspire to comfortable middle-class lives. Then the Air Force base and steel mill closed. By 2010, the city had become the second-poorest city of its size in America. Today "Berdoo" struggles to find a way out of bankruptcy and maintain basic services for its residents. With gangs and methamphetamine drifting in like L.A. smog, life for many has become bleak. The Los Angeles Times explores the problems and hopes of this onetime "All-America City" in a gripping multimedia package.
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