Municipal Finance Book Club: Excerpts from The Power Broker, Part 2

You’ve seen the headlines: S&P downgrades Chicago’s credit rating. The mayor proposes a property tax rate hike. CPS and the mayor’s office clash over responsibility for the municipal workers’ pension payment. City Council approves the use expiring TIF revenue to fund $1.25 billion in bonds for housing and economic development.

A budget war is raging in Chicago, and our press is all over it. But rarely do we confront the deeper questions that underlie the conflict, here and in every other American city: Are we actually broke, and why? Who controls the cash that flows into and out of our cities? Is social democracy, let alone socialism, even possible at the municipal level–or are we destined to forever beg for scraps of state and federal revenue?Join the Municipal Finance Book Club as we approach these questions through discussion of excerpts from Robert Caro’s legendary The Power Broker.

In this week’s excerpt, we’ll learn more about the inner workings of Robert Moses’ public authorities, whose practically limitless borrowing powers allowed Moses to build public works without having to yield to legislative scrutiny or grassroots pressure. Then, we’ll see how Moses’ insulation from democratic control led him to commit key strategic blunders, ultimately resulting in his downfall at the hands of New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

Please read the following chapters for Part 2:
Chapter 33: Leading Out the Regiment
Chapter 49: The Last Stand
This is the second in a two-part series.