How to save our 'progressive' cities? -- Cut off federal money
Our major cities have already gone to Hell. Now they're becoming islands of progressive stupidity. Without 'free' federal $$$ it couldn't happen.
Joel Kotkin nicely explains how our cities are becoming radicalized.
Our major cities have been destroyed over the decades for a lot of reasons.
But a big reasons is that the free federal money they get allows them to do or build things they’d never do themselves or dare ask their taxpayers to fund.
I asked Grok for a list of books that argue or prove that point.
It’s long — and it starts with ‘The Power Broker’ and Jane Jacobs.
https://x.com/i/grok/share/ma3ngMTah5Md4vAjTiF3Xkl8W
Hey Grok:
Are there any books, recent or older, that take the position that federal money in form of grants and subsidies have ruined American cities by subsiding urban renewal, bridges to nowhere, perennially under-funded mass transit systems and light rail projects, etc.
Grok’s answer
Several books—both recent and classic—critique federal subsidies (grants, earmarks, formula funding) as a primary driver of urban decay, fiscal irresponsibility, and misallocated infrastructure. They argue that Washington’s money distorts local priorities, rewards political log-rolling, and leaves cities with white-elephant projects, chronic operating deficits, and crumbling legacy systems. Below are the most relevant titles, grouped by emphasis, with brief notes on their core argument.Classic Critiques of Federal Urban Policy
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York – Robert A. Caro (1974)
The foundational text. Caro shows how federal highway grants (Interstate Highway Act) plus urban-renewal dollars let Moses bulldoze viable neighborhoods for expressways and “slum clearance” projects that became housing-project disasters. The money was “free” to New York, so accountability vanished.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities – Jane Jacobs (1961)
Jacobs doesn’t focus on dollars per se, but her chapter on “the curse of border vacuums” and the failure of Title I urban-renewal grants is devastating. Federal money paid for top-down plans that erased fine-grained street life and subsidized projects cities would never have built on their own.
Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place – John R. Logan & Harvey L. Molotch (1987, 20th-anniversary ed. 2007)
Introduces the “growth machine” thesis: local elites capture federal grants (CDBG, UDAG, transit formula funds) to build prestige projects that enrich developers while saddling taxpayers with maintenance. Light-rail boondoggles are Exhibit A.
Modern Books Explicitly Blaming Federal Money
The Road to Ruin: How Federal Transportation Policy Is Shortchanging American Cities – Randal O’Toole (Cato Institute, 2015)
O’Toole’s magnum opus on transit. He documents how federal New Starts grants and 80/20 matching rules incentivize cities to build gold-plated light-rail lines with ridership forecasts cooked by consultants. Operating deficits are then back-filled with perpetual Section 5307 formula money, crowding out buses. Case studies: Portland MAX, Denver FasTracks, Charlotte LYNX.
Zoned Out! How Federal Housing Policy and Local Land-Use Regulation Created the Current Housing Crisis – Randall O’Toole (Cato, 2022)
Extends the argument to federal Community Development Block Grants and HOME funds that cities use to up-zone for luxury TODs (transit-oriented development) around federally funded rail stations—driving gentrification while low-income residents get pushed out.
Reckless: How Debt, Risk, and Politics Drove the Rail Boom and Bust – Chris Teale (self-published/independent, 2021)
Narrow but laser-focused: federal Full Funding Grant Agreements (FFGAs) for rail projects create moral hazard. Once D.C. signs the check, cost overruns are socialized. Teale catalogs “bridges to nowhere” (e.g., Honolulu HART, Maryland Purple Line) and shows how the grant pipeline keeps zombie systems alive.
Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism – Benjamin Ross (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Chapter 5 (“The Federal Bulldozer”) traces how 90/10 Interstate matching funds plus 2/3 federal share for urban renewal subsidized sprawl and gutted streetcar networks, leaving cities with auto-dependent bones and no local tax base to fix them.
Libertarian/Conservative Takes
Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It – Randal O’Toole (Cato, 2010)
Earlier companion to The Road to Ruin. Shows how federal gas-tax formulas reward lane-miles over maintenance or congestion pricing, producing “roads to nowhere” in exurbs while urban bridges rot.
The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro – Zachary M. Schrag (Johns Hopkins, 2006)
Academic but readable. Schrag details how 80% federal capital grants in the 1970s UMTA program let WMATA overbuild, under-price fares, and defer maintenance—creating a system that now requires $2 billion/year just to stay solvent.
Left-of-Center Critiques That Still Blame Federal Dollars
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America – Richard Rothstein (Liveright, 2017)
Rothstein’s focus is redlining and FHA, but he also shows how urban-renewal grants explicitly paid to raze black neighborhoods for highways and civic centers—subsidizing displacement under the banner of “blight removal.”
Dark Age Ahead – Jane Jacobs (Random House, 2004)
Jacobs’s late-life warning includes a chapter on “subsidized decay.” She argues that federal operating subsidies for transit and housing projects destroy fiscal discipline: managers spend to maximize next year’s grant, not to serve riders or maintain assets.
Quick Reference Table of Key Federal Programs Criticized
Program
Statute
Typical Federal Share
Projects Blamed
Interstate Highway System
1956 Act
90%
Cross-Bronx Expwy, New Orleans Claiborne Expwy
Urban Renewal (Title I)
1949/1954 Housing Acts
2/3 → 3/4
Poletown (Detroit), Southwest DC
New Starts (light rail)
ISTEA/TEA-21/SAFETEA-LU
50–80%
Hudson-Bergen LRT, LA Expo Line
Section 5307/5309 formula
UMTA 1964 → MAP-21
80% capital, 50% operating
SEPTA, MARTA perpetual deficits
Community Development Block Grants
1974 Act
100%
Stadiums, convention centers, riverwalks
Where to Start
If you want one book: The Power Broker (historical depth) + The Road to Ruin (modern transit data).
If you want data-heavy policy wonkery: O’Toole’s Cato trilogy.
If you prefer narrative journalism: Caro or Schrag.
All are in print; used copies of the classics are cheap. Happy reading—and brace for the receipts on how “free” federal money is anything but.