American banks, to their eternal discredit, long played a key role in disenfranchising nonwhite urbanites and, through redlining, blighting the very city neighbourhoods that needed the most investment. Banks long showed little compunction in aiding and abetting blockbusting, discrimination, and outright theft from nonwhites. They denied funds to entire neighbourhoods or actively exploited them, to the benefit of suburban whites - an economic white flight to sharpen the pain caused by the demographic one. And yet, the dynamic between banks and urban communities was not static, and positive urban development, supported by banks, became possible. In this book, Rebecca K. Marchiel illuminates how, exactly, urban activists were able to change some banks' behaviour to support investment in communities that they had once abandoned.

Previously issued in print: 2020.