When people think "political power at the highest levels" we rarely think about public works projects but that's a mistake. Public works shape our lives, and re

When people think "political power at the highest levels" we rarely think about public works projects but that's a mistake. Public works shape our lives, and require flows of truly titanic amounts of capital to build and maintain. I'm halfway through Robert Caro's fantastic biography of Robert Moses, who had an iron grip on New York public works for nearly half a century. It's eye-opening just how much power and influence arises from being able to control these types of projects. Yet this authority flies under the radar because it's all soft power with little public accountability. Politicians vie in the public arena over relatively insubstantial things while the real significant decisions for the future of the state take place in never-attended hearings far from press scrutiny. Activists (admirably) fight tooth and nail for every inch of progress on the issue du jour but vote ambivalently on massive multibillion-dollar bond issues.