Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City

For numerous city planners and urban activists, Jane Jacobs' The Death & Life of American Cities (1961) and The Economy of Cities (1969) were life-changing manifestos. As Douglas Martin writes, "Ms. Jacobs' enormous achievement was to transcend her own withering critique of 20th century urban planning and propose radically new principles for rebuilding cities. At a time when both common and inspired wisdom called for bulldozing slums and opening up city space, Ms. Jacobs' prescription was ever more diversity, density and dynamism." Her ideas energized populists, but her actions placed her in a David and Goliath struggle with legendary New York power broker Robert Moses. Battle by battle, skirmish by skirmish, Jacobs eventually did what mayors and governors could not: she undermined the previously unfettered influence of this master city planner. Wrestling With Moses recaps a Gotham saga of biblical proportions.