ABSTRACT
Certain things stand out in a city. A medieval European city immediately signals that religion and aristocracy were the chief sources of power by the way cathedrals and castles dominate. The United States struggled long and hard to get rid of aristocratic privilege, but Baltimore's downtown skyline says that a financial aristocra~y is alive and well. As you look down on the city from Federal Hill, banks and financial institutions tower over everything else, proclaiming in glass, brick, and concrete that they hold the reins of power.
