Road-construction politicians profited by trading approval votes for advance route knowledge

Evidence

To take advantage of the financial opportunities provided by a parkway, a politician had to have foreknowledge. If he wanted to be first on line with his recommendations for construction contract awards, he had to know that the highway was going to be built. If he wanted to buy land that was to be acquired for the highway’s right-of-way or land strategically near the highway, he had to know where the highway was going to be built, not its general location but its precise route, so that he could buy the exact lots that would be acquired, and he had to know before the owners knew so that, not knowing that their land might be valuable, they would sell cheap. And politicians had a weapon they could use in obtaining such advance information; if they did not get it, they would not approve the building of the highway. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 912

Categorization

• XREF: Connects with other corruption-and-infrastructure bodies of work — e.g. LA’s freeway-adjacent land deals, Tammany-era transit contracting, and Caro’s own later tracing of how highway patronage corrodes Moses. — connects to: Public highway construction enriched politicians through contracts and insider land speculation — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 911; Lawmakers justify industry-serving votes using market-virtue rationalizations — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1523; Highway sound barriers mainly serve as political solutions — Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence- One Man’s…, 1691 (+1 more)
• SHARE: Caro lays out the precise incentive machinery, worth sharing with anyone studying procurement corruption or infrastructure-political machines.

Broader Connections

• Lawmakers justify industry-serving votes using market-virtue rationalizations #complicates (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1523
• Highway sound barriers mainly serve as political solutions #complicates (0.72) — Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence- One Man’s…, 1691
• Political actors’ influence varies with opportunity, position, and skill #expands (0.72)