California City Revives With Tax Revenue Redirected from Rivals

Dinuba, a California town with more than one-fourth of its residents living in poverty, could easily have been a casualty of the pandemic economy. But it had an ace in the hole: an agreement with Best Buy Inc. to share tax revenue on sales from its local warehouse.

Instead of cutting basic services, the city took in enough money from the pandemic’s e-commerce boom to provide computer tablets and microphones to students learning from home. It’s giving aid to businesses on its own while it waits for federal funding from the CARES Act, and offered a three-day Covid-19 vaccination event. ...