Definition
Urban construction is the practice of building large physical assets inside cities — bridges, highways, housing, parks, public buildings, water and sewer systems — at the scale that only governments and large authorities can finance. Unlike single-building development, urban construction reshapes neighborhoods and corridors, often irreversibly, over time horizons measured in decades.
It is the substrate of The Power Broker. The book is the story of one man's command over urban construction in a single city across half a century — and of the political coalitions, financial techniques, and procedural shortcuts that command required.
Why it matters
How it works
Building at urban scale requires coordinated motion across four worlds at once. Engineering and architectural firms must produce designs that survive contact with reality. Finance must structure bonds, contracts, and federal-grant applications. Politics must hold a coalition of mayors, governors, legislators, and (especially) federal agency heads in line long enough for shovels to break ground. Labor and contractors must deliver on schedule, with weather, materials, and union politics conspiring to delay them.
The administrator who can keep all four worlds synchronized for years on end is rare and disproportionately powerful. Moses was the master of this synchronization, and his career shows both its rewards (twelve bridges, thirteen expressways, 658 playgrounds) and its costs (the half-million people displaced and the alternatives unbuilt).