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This is the seventh official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro.
This week, Roman and Elliott sit down with Pete Buttigieg, the US Secretary of Transportation. One of his major responsibilities as Secretary is overseeing the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which has contributed billions of dollars to infrastructure projects around the country.
Secretary Buttigieg was also responsible for several major infrastructure projects when he was mayor of South Bend, Indiana. And he’s talked about the importance of acknowledging and dismantling the racism built into transportation systems around the country — somewhat paraphrasing The Power Broker — and has gotten a lot of pushback for it.
On today’s show, Elliott Kalan and Roman Mars will cover the second half of Part 5 and the first section of Part 6 (Chapter 27 through Chapter 32), discussing the major story beats and themes.
The Power Broker #07: Sec. Pete Buttigieg
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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This is the 99% invisible breakdown of the power broker. I'm Roman Mars. And I'm Elliott Calen.
So today we're covering the final section of part five, the love of power and the beginning of part six, the lust for power. That's chapters 27 through 30.
2, pages 607 through 702. And later in this episode, our special guest is the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg.
In addition to overseeing the federal dollars for infrastructure in this country, Secretary Buttigieg was also responsible for the
For several major infrastructure projects when he was mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
About acknowledging the racism built into transportation systems around the country. Something he has mentioned publicly, kind of paraphrasing the power broker, and gotten a lot of pushback for.
So on the last episode, Robert Moses was showing what an amazing visionary he was, but also what a petty tyrant he could be. On one hand, he was brilliantly taking advantage of these tax assessments and federal programs and archival research to complete the funding of this massive West Side Manhattan construction
amazing chapter and just like how he works down $109 million to something that the city can afford. On the other hand, he's destroying neighborhoods, these historic neighborhoods. He's destroying New York's
Natural wilderness space without taking anyone else's need into account and harassing the Columbia Yacht Club just because he can, because he thought that they were rude to him. It's also becoming clear how much he is using race and class when it comes to his park projects. Like he's deliberately under-serving New York's poor people and people of color. And meanwhile, all these bridges and
that are meant to relieve New York's traffic problems are actually seeming to make traffic worse. And this is becoming this thing that is constant.
It's almost a universal truth when it comes to building bridges and more roads and more lanes. But he cannot see this.
Only solution no matter what the outcome actually proves itself to be. And then we've also learned in this just horrible chapter, a good chapter, but a very sad chapter of Robert Moses's relationship with his own family, the decades he spent under...
The career and the success of his own brother and his disdain and sort of completely ignoring his sister and just the just the completely undermining the vitality and the life force
marry his wife. So that was on the last episode, so check it out if you haven't heard it. Now we're up to chapter 27, also again called Changing. And tell us, what are we in store for? I'm excited because this Changing chapter is a different Changing chapter from the last one. Remember from the last episode, that Changing chapter was 75 pages long or so.
And this one, this episode, we're going to be zooming through chapters. Some of the shortest chapters in the book are on this one. And you can't judge a chapter by its size. There's still valuable information, concepts, moments, scenes. It's amazing. And I know last episode, you probably had a lot of audience members saying something they never thought they would say before.
For all that poor yacht club and this episode we're gonna have more shocks and twists like that one
Also, I didn't want to interrupt you, Roman, but I was thinking when you're talking about the bridges making traffic worse, I started thinking of
first line of Pride and Prejudice and I was wishing Jane Austen could could write her gloss on the book and be like it's a truth universally acknowledged that the make
Of a bridge will lead to more cars on the bridge. So this chapter, we'll start with chapter 27, changing. We're still in part five, the love of power. Love of power, that's the worst emotion you can feel for power, right? No, get ready. We're going to get to part six and then it gets dirtier. But chapter 27 is about how Robert Moses is continuing to...
Change from someone who, well, the previous change of Robert Moses was from someone who was an idealist to a realist, someone who held so firm to their principles they could not get things done.
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