Building Gotham : civic culture and public policy in New York City, 1898-1938 / Keith D. Revell

Introduction. Conceiving the new metropolis : expertise, public policy, and the problem of civic culture in New York City -- Private infrastructure and public policy : "The public be pleased". Railroad planning, engineering culture, and the promise of quasi-scientific voluntarism. Beyond voluntarism : the Interstate Commerce Commission, the railroads, and freight planning for New York harbor -- Public infrastructure, local autonomy, and private wealth : buccaneer bureaucrats, physical interdependence, and free riders : building the underground city. Taxing, spending, and borrowing : expanding public claims on private wealth -- Urban planning, private rights, and public power. City planning versus the law : zoning the metropolis. "They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair" : regional planning and the metropolitan dilemma. Conclusion "An almost mystical unity" : interdependence and the public interest in the modern metropolis