USA Today visited Stockton, the foreclosure capital of the United States, for a color story. I lived in Stockton for a couple years and found it ideally situated.

It is close to the Bay area, so I could visit my sister in San Jose more often. We could drop in on our friends in Sacramento and, if we wanted, could be in Tahoe in a few hours. This was before the real estate boom and we were renters, so we never attempted to buy a house.

But later, many families did. Locked out of the Bay area housing market, they turned to Stockton and, for some, a healthy commute. Today, many of those families are gone, forced out by foreclosure. I hear stories of commuters losing their homes and moving back to the Bay area.

It's going to take awhile for Stockton, Merced and other hard-hit cities to recover from the real estate party. Anyway, here's the story.