Richmond’s rules: Why one California town is keeping Wall Street
up at night  Very early on a Wednesday morning in September, the
city council of Richmond, Calif., did something that no American
city had yet managed: It voted for a plan to wrest underwater
mortgages from the hands of Wall Street, depriving investors of
tens of millions of dollars in order to save borrowers from
foreclosure.  For communities across the land -- North Las
Vegas, San Bernardino County, Calif., Chicago -- where too many
are stuck with house payments beyond what they can afford, this
was the nuclear option. While those cities backed away, Richmond
hit the  The mechanism? Eminent domain, the power of the
government to seize private property for public use, which has
not typically been used to help poor neighborhoods. After five
years of the federal government gently nudging banks to forgive
homeowners debt they took on in better days, cities have found a
legal weapon the financial industry truly fears.  The stability
of those housin