New York: The City and the World (2001)

• 81%
• 2001
• Documentary
• Ric Burns

City planner Robert Moses appears obsessed with his power and authority such that he publicly denounces through television interviews and newspaper editorials anyone who is opposed to what he calls inevitable progress. Moses is responsible for re-developing existing large city neighborhoods and when he is opposed he simply uses the threat of Federal intervention to proceed with his re-building. Whole neighborhoods are told to move out in the next 90 days, and then one woman community activist Jane Jacobs, fought tooth and nail to stop Moses latest major project, the Lower Manhattan Expressway. Jane Jacobs persistence has the public support as well as political support such that the Lower Manhattan Expressway project is cancelled, and it leads to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, ensuring the survival of New York's most architecturally important buildings and neighborhoods. It is also the time period of an influx of southern African-Americans moved north and Puerto Rican immigrants poured into the city. The banks went through with their previous threat(s) to cease extending any further loans to the city politicians. President Ronald Reagan reluctantly agreed to loan billions of dollars to the state of New York after economists warned him the alternative could lead to further financial ruins in other parts of the country.