The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Before Trump There Was Moses

Want to understand the politics and the reasons why NYC is the way it is? Read it and weep.

Robert Moses was never elected to public office. Yet his power over public finance and social decision-making was greater than that of any elected official, including at times the President of the United States (His nemesis, however, was the president's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was also unelected to anything but just as crafty).

Moses created his power by creating the laws which New York State politicians passed without reading or understanding the fine print. He effectively institutionalised himself as, among other posts, the Chairman of the Long Island State Parks Commission, and the head of the Triborough Bridge Authority. These positions, thanks to his foresightful design, were immune to political review.

At the LISPC, he single-handedly designed the expansion of the New York City suburbs from the 1930's onward as totally dependent on the automobile and in such a way that would limit racial integration. At the Triborough Bridge Authority, he created a spectacularly successful cash cow whose funds could not be touched without his approval. And even the 1970's financial collapse of the City was not enough to attract this approval.

Yet other administrative positions, often held simultaneously in the City and the State, gave Moses blanket-control of every significant planning and planning-variance decision within the City. His tentacles of power extended even to the Northern reaches of the State through his control of electricity generation along the St. Lawrence River.

There is no evidence that Moses ever took a bribe or benefitted financially from his immense power. He started his career and pursued it as an idealist. He was nonetheless a dictator who routinely destroyed neighbourhoods, regularly flouted the law, coerced politicians of both major parties, and ultimately left a legacy of social devastation which will last for decades if not centuries.

Caro's documentation of Moses's strategy and activities is unparalleled. His attention to detail and nuance is acute. His judgments and conclusions are never precipitous and always subtle. This book should be on the required reading list of every course in democratic government in every country on the planet.

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