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Stockton, where the median household income is $46,000, is just the latest city to look to wealthy individuals for help. In Kalamazoo, Michigan, two donors have given $70 million to fill potholes and repair streets, all so the city doesn’t have to raise income taxes. In Detroit, national foundations contributed more than $300 million during the city’s bankruptcy to help protect the city’s art museum and shore up its pension systems. New York City’s Office of Strategic Partnerships has raised $400 million in philanthropic money to eradicate inequality. Perhaps most famously, Mark Zuckerberg pledged over $100 million in 2010 to improve the Newark public-school system.

Skeptics say that cities shouldn’t rely on rich people’s money to operate. In Kalamazoo, one of the two city commissioners to vote against taking donations told The Chronicle of Philanthropy that depending on the benevolence of billionaires to run a city sets a dangerous precedent. In Detroit, it was funders who worried that giving money to a financially struggling city wasn’t sustainable. Zuckerberg’s Newark donation was widely scorned by people who accused him of failing to engage the local community and teachers—many educators and parents in the city first learned of the donation after Zuckerberg announced it on Oprah.

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