A lawsuit was filed in Cuyahoga County Ohio by the Cleveland Mayor, Frank Jackson. Mayor Jackson's complaint states that 21 investment banks (mortgage houses) created a public nuisance by selling subprime mortgages, which in turn created hugh default rates and has destroyed entire neighborhoods/communities.

The Cleveland Mayor stated that the home foreclosures has had the same effect on communities as drug dealing, i.e. abandoned homes where the landscape is not maintained and where crime starts to flurish.

Others has said that the mortgage banks engaged in "organized crime".

I think its an interesting analogy, but it fails to appropriate a sufficient amount o fblame on home buyers that bit off more than they could chew.