When cities raise money through bonds, they become indebted to bondholders. In the late nineteenth century, cities had the upper hand over their creditors; by the New Deal era, bondholders had become more powerful. But some investors still valued the interests of communities, funding a massive expansion of schools, infrastructure, and public housing.

Today, bondholders reign supreme. Through ratings agencies and high interest rates, they have found ways to profit off hollowed-out housing projects, white flight, and even the riots that swept segregated cities during the 1960s.

The historian Destin Jenkins wants us to see that this situation is not natural: a small “fraternity” of financiers worked to insulate the bond market from public input and appoint themselves its technocratic overlords. Jenkins historicizes bondholder supremacy in The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City. His book focuses on San Francisco, a city that built a progressive political culture and avoided the ravages of deindustrialization — yet nevertheless became incredibly segregated and unequal, in part because of the bond market.