Robert Moses - The Power Broker

Intro: Fifty years ago, Robert Caro's The Power Broker exposed how an unelected city planner, Robert Moses, wielded immense power to reshape New York City (NYC). Today, the marks of his legacy are still visible—towering expressways that divided neighborhoods and public spaces that struggle to serve a growing population. While Columbia University historian Hilary Ballon and others have encouraged a reevaluation of Moses, acknowledging his contributions to parks, roads, and public spaces, the human cost of his projects remains undeniable. As the New York Historical Society commemorates the 50th anniversary of Caro's book, the lessons of Moses' reign are more relevant than ever in debates on infrastructure, equity, and the dangers of unchecked power.

Thesis: Robert Moses' impact on NYC continues to influence urban planning, transportation, and housing decisions today. His unchecked power and controversial methods, often ignoring marginalized communities, highlight the importance of prioritizing accountability and equity in modern policymaking. At the same time, his public infrastructure achievements reveal the complexity of his legacy.

Urban Planning and Infrastructure: Moses reshaped New York for the automobile era, prioritizing expressways over public transportation. His decisions influenced the city's structure and created long-term consequences, such as traffic congestion and the displacement of entire communities. As historian Kenneth Jackson suggests, New York may have partly avoided the misguided infrastructure fate of cities like Detroit or St. Louis because of Moses' ambitious projects. Still, the cost to NYC's local neighborhoods was immense. Today, the city grapples with issues like congestion pricing and public transportation improvements while attempting to reverse the damage caused by Moses' automobile-centric vision.

Evidence: The Sheridan Expressway, which Moses built in the Bronx, cut off neighborhoods from the Bronx River and has since required a costly redevelopment to fix the disruption it caused. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo and other planners have pointed to this as one of Moses' "mistakes," which has forced a reevaluation of the long-term costs of such projects.

Housing and Social Equity: While his infrastructure projects shaped the city's physical landscape, Moses' impact on housing policy deepened racial and economic divides. His projects disproportionately affected low-income and minority communities, using "slum clearance" as a pretext for projects that displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Though Moses created public spaces like parks and pools, his approach to public housing reinforced racial and class divisions. As gentrification and the affordable housing crisis continue to reshape New York's landscape, we still grapple with the social damage caused by Moses' top-down approach to urban development.

Evidence: Moses' deliberate placement of public housing in areas that divided racial and economic groups persists in the inequities found in NYC housing today. Moreover, his decision to build bridges over parkways too low for buses to pass effectively excluded poorer, predominantly minority communities from accessing public parks like Jones Beach.

Unchecked Power and Public Accountability: Moses operated without public oversight for much of his career, wielding unprecedented authority to implement his vision with little regard for the communities affected. His actions, such as refusing to invest in public transportation, exacerbated New York's dependence on cars, leaving the city's subway system underfunded for decades. However, the scale of his projects—parks, bridges, highways—was unmatched, and many of these achievements are still critical to New York's infrastructure today. Public policy must ensure transparency and community involvement to avoid repeating the mistakes of Moses' era while maintaining a vision for large-scale development.

Evidence: Moses systematically starved New York's subways of funding, which has had long-lasting consequences for the city's reliance on automobiles and inadequate public transit. His decision to prioritize highways over subways laid the groundwork for a transportation system still struggling to meet the needs of a growing population. Yet, as Robin Pogrebin notes, his contributions to public infrastructure, like Jones Beach and Riverside Park, have had a lasting positive impact on the city's landscape.

"To Be Sure": Moses built much of New York's infrastructure, including bridges, highways, and parks. Yet, his top-down approach, often ignoring public accountability, left a legacy of social inequity. While his achievements were significant, as Caro and other historians reflect, they came at a considerable cost to the communities displaced and marginalized by his projects. As Hilary Ballon notes, there is no clear successor to Moses regarding large-scale infrastructure development, and the city may owe part of its revival to his work.

Conclusion: As New York embarks on projects like the Gateway Program and Interborough Express, today's policymakers are learning from Moses' legacy by prioritizing equity and community input. These efforts show how large-scale development can avoid the social harms of the past. The New York Historical Society's The Power Broker exhibition reminds us of Moses' profound positive and negative impact on the city's landscape. Moving forward, balancing visionary infrastructure with community needs is essential to avoid repeating history's mistakes.