My sign to read The Power Broker
I was just wrapping up reading Breakneck by Dan Wang last night. The book has seven chapters, which each read more like independent essays all tied together by the same Chinese thread. I plan on writing at least a few posts on my learnings from the book.
The last chapter includes Wang's personal narrative and background. He writes how he and his parents ultimately left China and landed in Canada/the United States. It's also a fitting conclusion to the book, entreating America to learn the right lessons from China's manufacturing and public works building prowess and put physical dynamism back on the list of top priorities.
A few months before this, when I was getting back into reading regularly, I discovered Robert Caro. He got unmatched praise for his nonfiction biographical writing in all the reviews I read. So I cracked open The Power Broker. I read the introduction but decided I wasn't quite interested enough in New York's public works to take on that 1300+ page beast.
Fast forward to today. I've been led right back to that book.
Wang spends multiple pages in his last chapter talking about Moses and his accomplishments building things in New York, despite his flaws. He believes Caro's book set people against Moses and helped codify America's "lawyerly society" that took off in the 1970s. New York City has remained a vibrant center of American culture and life partly due to Robert Moses' bruising drive to build public works.
China has figured this idea out for themselves as well—people feel more optimistic about the future of their country and culture when things physically improve.
I should also mention my work with a defense tech startup often triggers discussions about American manufacturing capacity, competition with China, building in America, and many more topics Wang discusses.
So now I have to explore the question for myself: what can we learn from America's greatest builder, Robert Moses?
Robert Caro, even if The Power Broker casts Moses in an unfavorable light, offers the answers. This is my cue to pick it up and read it.