The Career of Robert Moses

Robert Moses, who dominated urban planning in New York City and New York State from the 1930s to the 1960s, personified the hubris of central planning. Perhaps America’s leading practitioner of constructivism in politics and in architecture, Moses demonstrated in his work all of the major pitfalls of socialism—unintended and unwanted consequences, the inability to allocate scarce resources rationally, the abandonment of ordinary morality, and the extreme disregard for the wishes of those whose lives are being planned.