Detroit filed for bankruptcy in July 2013. On December 3, a U.S. bankruptcy court ruled against parties who had challenged its eligibility for chapter 9 protection. Since Detroit is the most populous city in the state of Michigan and is the center of a metropolitan region of 5.2 million, this event has attracted a lot of attention, inspiring different ‘takes,’ involving in each case a distinct ideological or psychological prism. For example, Detroit has long been the center of the American automobile industry, so much so that the word “Detroit” is used as a metonym for that industry, and that has inspired some commentators who have seen the failure of municipal finances as of a piece with the failure of that industry in the face of innovative overseas competitors and changing public tastes. This was the take for example, of Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of PIMCO. This take is also broadly consistent with a mantra of Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, who ke...