Can you really call municipal bankruptcy a nationwide phenomenon? You have: Jefferson County, Alabama that got mixed up in some interest rate swaps they had no business getting involved with; a couple of cities in California that got punished especially badly when home prices collapsed; and now Detroit which has been suffering from an ever shrinking tax base. I don't think you can really look at it and say there's a trend.
Detroit, San Bernardino, Mammoth Lakes, Stockton, Harrisburg, Central Falls (RI). Cities all over the country are on the verge of bankruptcy. States can't go bankrupt, but Illinois has stopped paying many of its bills--as state support for municipalities dries up, that could case many municipalities to go into bankruptcy.
