Gregory D. Squires

Meltdown reveals how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was able to curb unsafe and unfair practices that led to the 2008 financial crisis. In interviews with key government, industry, and advocacy groups along with deep archival research, Kirsch and Squires show where the CFPB was able to overcome many abusive practices, where it was less able to do so, and why.Open for business in 2011, the CFPB was Congress's response to the financial catastrophe that shattered millions of middle-class and lower-income households and threatened the stability of the global economy. But only a few years later, with U.S. economic conditions on a path to recovery, there are already disturbing signs of the (re)emergence of the high-risk, high-reward credit practices that the CFPB was designed to curb. This book profiles how the Bureau has attempted to stop abusive and discriminatory lending practices in the mortgage and automobile lending sectors and documents the multilayered challenges faced by an untested new regulatory agency in its efforts to transform the broken—but lucrative—business practices of the financial services industry.Authors Kirsch and Squires raise the question of whether the consumer protection approach to financial services reform will succeed over the long term in light of political and business efforts to scuttle it. Case studies of mortgage and automobile lending reforms highlight the key contextual and structural conditions that explain the CFPB's ability to transform financial service industry business models and practices. Meltdown: The Financial Crisis, Consumer Protection, and the Road Forward is essential reading for a wide audience, including anyone involved in the provision of financial services, staff of financial services and consumer protection regulatory agencies, and fair lending and consumer protection advocates. Its accessible presentation of financial information will also serve students and general readers.

Urban Sprawl is not simply a development that undercuts the quality of life for suburbanites. It has raised alarms across the nation, as fair housing advocates, environmentalists, land use planners, and even many suburban employers who cannot find the workers they need, have recognized that the costs go far beyond aesthetics. Despite the agreement that something needs to be done, there is no consensus on what works. Urban Sprawl: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Responses assembles leading scholars who analyze the major causes and consequences of urban sprawl and the policy initiatives that are being explored in response to these developments.

Redlining refers to discrimination in the homeowners' insurance market based on racial or ethnic characteristics of neighborhoods or individuals that are unrelated to risk. This book brings new evidence to bear on the issues that have framed almost 30 years of debate over insurance redlining, providing a framework for the development of public policy, private industry practice, and partnerships with community-based organizations that can help make insurance available. Contributors include academics, community organizers, private attorneys, and staffs of government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Contributors include: Tom Baker and Karen McElrath; Stephen Dane; Robert Klein; George Knight; William Lynch; Richard Ritter; Jay Schultz; D.J. Powers; and Shanna Smith and Cathy Cloud.

Capital and Communities in Black and White explores the problems created by global economic restructuring, the decline of inner city neighborhoods, and the heightened racial conflicts in the United States.