Rich texts: The power brokers who broke our cities and courts

Rich Texts is a bonus content series where I share quotes and why they made me stop and reflect. Not short, pithy, one- or two-sentence quotes, but whole paragraphs or poems—rich texts that I think are worth sharing and digging into. 

This month, this subscriber-only content is available for all subscribers, paid and unpaid. But starting in February, this series will be available only for paid subscribers. Gotta pay the bills.

It’s a great time to be a podcast nerd, and one thing people learn about me fairly quickly is that I listen to too many podcasts. It is an especially great time to be a podcast nerd who loves a good series that asks the question: “How the hell did we get here?” (I suspect I’m not the only one in that sliver of the Venn diagram.) The podcasters collectively decided 2024 was going to be the year of big, exciting podcast series and I’m here for it. 

First, 99% Invisible launched its series on “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro, a biography of Robert Moses, the man “who built more structures and moved more earth than anyone in human history” and made New York City what it is today, for better or worse. It’s a story of someone who knew how to amass and wield power and how he used it to shape the world we live in today.

In a preview for this series, 99PI host Roman Mars and series co-host Elliott Kalan spoke with Conan O’Brien (yes that Conan O’Brien! Surprise!) who said Caro's 1,200-page tome is worth the time to read because “you will be enveloped by this incredible story … about how power works and what one person can do to completely change the face of an American city.” They did such a good job hyping it I almost bought a copy but the other unread tomes on my bookshelf threatened to mutiny.

The first episode dropped Jan. 18 and even though I’ve never cracked the spine of the book, I found it illuminating and delightful. Especially the segment where they interview the author, Robert Caro, who says he could have spent his whole life just going through archives, but unfortunately, he had to publish a book every seven years or so. So, a man after my own heart. 

But “The Power Broker” in particular is based on a lot of Caro’s reporting when he was a newspaper reporter. At one point he talks about a community that was displaced by one of Moses’ projects, which Caro estimated (and this is a conservative estimate) Moses did to a total of 500,000 people. The residents scattered all across the city moving wherever they could, a community decimated. A recurring phrase Caro heard while talking to them was “lonely.”

“Lonely is a word, you know, in my opinion, you don’t use the word ‘lonely’ about yourself unless it's very, very overwhelming in your life,” Caro says.

We see a lot of coverage of the loneliness epidemic in this country, and a lot of advice to mitigate loneliness based on personal actions—find a hobby, put yourself out there, etc. But what if everyone could choose, actually choose, where we want to live? Would you live closer to family? To friends? How much nicer would your day-to-day life be if you could walk to work, or walk your kids to school? What about all these third spaces where people get to interact, like parks, community centers, the gym, or your favorite bakery or coffee shop? How much time would we spend out of our homes, among other people, and not in cars, if we all had some control over where we live? What kinds of connections and social ties would be built if people from all different income levels and backgrounds could live in the same neighborhood? What kinds of social ties would you and all your neighbors have if you knew you could stay in your home as long as you want? 

I live in Sun Prairie. There’s nothing wrong with Sun Prairie, it’s a fine little suburban community. But I’ve never liked the suburbs. They’re just not for me. And all my friends, hobbies, and generally places I like to go are in Madison. So I regularly think about what my life would be like if I could afford to move into the city; how I’d bike all over just for fun, stop by people’s homes, or spontaneously invite people over for dinner.

Another point in the conversation that stuck out to me was when Caro talks about why he wanted people to know about Moses and his impact on the city, which he made more segregated, and more car-dependent. He gave the example of driving from Long Island into New York “and as far as you can see there’s bumper-to-bumper traffic,” making the drive about two hours each way. 

Well, when Moses was building the Long Island expressway, “everybody said to him (this isn’t hindsight, people knew at the time)... ‘if you just buy 240 feet instead of 200 feet [of right-of-way] there'll be room down the center for a light-rail line and every ten miles or so you could have a huge parking lot. So people who want to drive into New York can keep driving but if you want to take a train into New York you have that option.’ And he refused to do that.”

These people weren’t even telling Moses he needed to add a light-rail to the project, just to plan ahead in case someone wants to add one later. And he wouldn’t do it. So now commuters from Long Island to New York have no choice but to drive for hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic because one man, for whatever reason, decided there would NEVER be a light-rail line.

I don’t know who the Robert Moses of Madison is, but whenever I’m driving into the city from Sun Prairie, I look at the long line of cars and long for a light rail line. It could go all the way from Sun Prairie, down the Isthmus, through the UW campus and down to Epic Systems. And yes, we have buses, but buses get stuck in traffic, and what if you don’t have a bus pass or change? A light rail system with platforms and ticketing machines (or hell, you could make it free to encourage people to hop on and hop off and explore the city) would have more consistency. Maybe public transit in Madison will be better once Bus Rapid Transit is launched? We’ll find out. But a well-planned light-rail system would have a lot of potential to reduce traffic, and dependence on buses.

Anyway, this first episode has whetted my appetite for the rest of the series. I think it’ll give us plenty to think and talk about.

Rest of the recommendations:

For fellow infrastructure nerds, there’s also WGBH’s “The Big Dig” about the biggest infrastructure project in history and how it signaled the end of big infrastructure projects and the mentality that we can’t build big projects anymore. 

5-4, the “podcast about how the Supreme Court sucks” is doing a series on the Federalist Society. It’s also a great companion piece for the latest On the Media/Propublica series, “We Don’t Talk About Leonard,” about the architect of the conservative takeover of the judicial system, Leonard Leo. Also, for anyone else who has gotten sucked into the You’re Wrong About extended universe, Peter from 5-4 also co-hosts If Books Could Kill with Michael Hobbes. If that sentence makes no sense to you, do not worry about it. 

Throughline, one of my go-to podcasts from NPR about how history has shaped our present, is also doing a series on the Amendments to the Constitution. WNYC did a whole podcast devoted to that topic, More Perfect, so I’m interested in seeing how Throughline approaches the topic. 

Finally, if you’re not listening to Vibe Check, you are missing out on the most thoughtful and entertaining political and cultural commentary out there. Recently Sam Sanders, one of three hosts, talked to Cord Jefferson, screenwriter and director of American Fiction, about Blackness in the arts, and the expectations imposed by nice, white liberals on Black artists.

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