Part 4, Chapter 12 Robert Moses and the Creature of the Machine Summary

There are many factors at play in the parks issue. "The construction of parkways - like the construction of conventional highways - was a potential source of great wealth to politicians. Parkways meant construction contracts. Politicians who had a say in which firms received those contracts could expect financial remembrances from a successful firm, if indeed they - or a relative or a trusted associate known in political terminology as a 'bag man' - did not actually own a piece of it. Parkways meant real estate transactions, generally either purchase or condemnation, both methods under which landowners could expect to do well financially; state public works officials, anxious to begin construction and not too concerned about price because the money they were offering was not...