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Some of the lessons are clear and not new. When a few prominent local developers fell off a financial cliff, it quickly became apparent that they were overconfident, that they had overextended themselves, that they assumed past performance guaranteed future success.

The story about Regency in the June 15 Business Record detailed what was going on behind the scenes as things unraveled. The company didn’t implode all by itself; a rapidly deteriorating economy lit the fuse. But the managers had set themselves up for the shock.

They must have learned some important lessons, or at least we hope so.

The lingering question, and one that needs to be answered in conference rooms all over Central Iowa, is: Why did lenders make it so easy for these developers to get in trouble?

The anecdotal evidence has eager borrowers stopping at bank after bank and finding very little caution standing between them and the vaults.

By 2007, there were signs that the economy might stall. Regency’s operations were seen as too complex to be sensibly analyzed. In the tight-knit Des Moines business community, everyone who counts must have known that some would-be borrowers were spending what they already had in questionable ways. And common sense, that commodity Iowans like to brag about, should have suggested that some of the schemes were awfully risky.

In the end, for Regency, credit disappeared and its business model fell apart. It’s easy to understand that the leaders believed one more extension, one more big loan would have saved the day. It’s hard to understand why so many lenders escorted them into that corner.

Up until now, successful Des Moines families have passed their reputation down to succeeding generations, who draw upon it as if it were a bottomless account.

But cities grow and times change. In a small town, everybody knows whom to trust. Des Moines isn’t a small town anymore.