Robert Moses

Moses built motorways, bridges, parks and housing on a scale with no equivalent, without ever winning an election. His power came from accumulating posts in autonomous authorities with their own budgets, beyond the mayor's control and public scrutiny.

His works cut through entire neighbourhoods, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and tied New York to the car for generations. His clash with Jane Jacobs over the Lower Manhattan Expressway is the founding episode of modern urbanism: she won, and with her a different way of deciding.