“Since the 2008 financial crisis there have been a number of local governments that have declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy and had some process of default on their bonds. In this brief, we look at the broad parallels of communities in the table, page 3, which comprise many of the local government defaults in this time period. These bankruptcies were caused by a variety of factors, including economic downturns that were exacerbated by dependency on a certain industry in the local economy, the mismanagement of funds (from either specific projects or structured government benefits), as well as the role that the state government, race and politics played in the fate of the community’s finances.”