ABSTRACT
In October 2008, the suburb of Garfield Heights outside Cleveland was declared in fiscal emergency by the state of Ohio. The auditor’s office announced that the suburb was $3.4 million in the red, and that the local government had outspent its tax revenue by more than two months of income. Garfield Heights was bankrupt. The mayor blamed the fiscal crisis on the loss of income taxes due to rising unemployment and delinquent property taxes because of the spike in housing foreclosures (O’Donnell and O’Malley 2008). Tremendously vulnerable, the recent housing calamity and economic crash nudged Garfield Heights into a deep fiscal crisis.
