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The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City
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About The Bonds Of Inequality: Debt And The Making Of The
Product Description Indebtedness, like inequality, has become a ubiquitous condition in the United States. Yet few have probed American cities’ dependence on municipal debt or how the terms of municipal finance structure racial privileges, entrench spatial neglect, elide democratic input, and distribute wealth and power. In this passionate and deeply researched book, Destin Jenkins shows in vivid detail how, beyond the borrowing decisions of American cities and beneath their quotidian infrastructure, there lurks a world of politics and finance that is rarely seen, let alone understood. Focusing on San Francisco, The Bonds of Inequality offers a singular view of the postwar city, one where the dynamics that drove its creation encompassed not only local politicians but also banks, credit rating firms, insurance companies, and the national municipal bond market. Moving between the local and the national, The Bonds of Inequality uncovers how racial inequalities in San Francisco were intrinsically tied to municipal finance arrangements and how these arrangements were central in determining the distribution of resources in the city. By homing in on financing and its imperatives, Jenkins boldly rewrites the history of modern American cities, revealing the hidden strings that bind debt and power, race and inequity, democracy and capitalism. Review “This is a provocative book. . . . Jenkins has done a remarkable job of historical excavation.” ― Bloomberg News “Jenkins offers a fine-grained look at [San Francisco]’s engagement with the muni bond market from the 1940s to the 1980s and at how the demands of that market affected the investments the city could make in its infrastructure and people.” -- David Marcus ― The Deal "It joins a new canon of academic books analyzing what is broadly termed racial capitalism, Race for Profit by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Bankers and Empire by Peter James Hudson being two other notable examples. . . .While The Bonds of Inequality is not a history of radicalism, I found its methodology radical in itself. The deliberate way that Jenkins draws a web of the exact syndicates, companies, commissions, and lawyers that make up the municipal bond market reminded me of power mapping. There is something empowering in the way Jenkins picks apart the archives of Bank of America and other bondsmen." ― Rampant Magazine "Field-altering. . . . Jenkins unveils the shadow city. . . The book proceeds from a seemingly simple question: How did municipal governments pay for their colossal and racially differentiated investments in infrastructure and social services during the postwar era? The answer, it turns out, requires taking a jackhammer to the political, economic, social, and material foundations of the city, a task that Jenkins performs with fiery conviction and bulls-eye precision." ― Reviews in American History "A detailed history of debt politics in a single case city: San Francisco. . . . Jenkins joins the growing ranks of scholars fixing a racial-politics lens on the transition from Keynesianism to neoliberalism in the United States." ― Metropolitics ”Brilliant and pathbreaking. . . The genius of Bonds is its insistence on carefully demonstrating that ”federal failure is also the bankers’ story.”. . . The book clearly shows that the municipal bond sector’s hold on cities has grown only more toxic and suffocating as prolonged fiscal distress has become the default setting of American politics.” ― The Law & Political Economy Project “Many histories describe capitalism as a destructive phenomenon; the rare few take us into the guts of the system. Jenkins exposes the arteries and muscle, the bloodstreams that deliver money and credit to create racial capitalism. In a brilliant and tragic account, he reveals how bond finance—and the people who make it happen—extracts wealth and reconfigures governance, breaking urban communities on the very promise meant to rescue them: liberal
