Even a community’s own rebuilding plan was hijacked to destroy its best housing

Evidence

But Moses’ concept of the project soon expanded. While ETNA had conceived of it as one of limited size, limited to an area of run-down tenements so as not to hurt sound housing in the area, under Moses it was, to their dismay, expanded into a huge concept of 5,400 units—that would destroy no fewer than twenty-four of the best remaining apartment houses in the area. Moses’ concept of middle-income rents, moreover, proved to be higher than ETNA’s—so much higher that the people of East Tremont, who had proposed the project, realized that they were not going to be able to afford to live in it. One resident vividly recalls the ETNA meeting at which the Moses-proposed scale of rents was announced: “A groan of despair went up from the room.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 3725

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The manner of demolition, not just the demolition, destroyed a community’s will to resist — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 3728; Colonial order was achieved by destroying villages and rebuilding them to match plans — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 163

Broader Connections

• Colonial order was achieved by destroying villages and rebuilding them to match plans #corroborates (0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 163