Batman Begins’ Gotham City was a corrupt, soulless maze of high-rise towers looming over the crime and injustice below. Like Bruce Wayne’s late parents, Gotham’s aristocracy once cared for those less fortunate; now, the city’s rich are violently segregated from its poor.

As Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson) tells Batman, the League of Shadows used a new tool to destroy Gotham: economic inequality. New York City certainly seems to be following Gotham’s lead - and credit-default swaps and subprime mortgages sound eerily like something the League of Shadows might cook up.

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