rights to private developers such as Robert Moses. 95 Moses took advantage of Title 1 of the Act to gain 65.8 million dollars in funds for slum clearance in New York City. Many writers, like Hilary Ballon, suggest Moses was a great salesman, shaping perceptions of each development through the use of glossy brochures, public relations and in depth charts and presentations, representing the success of the end goal while ignoring the reality of how it would impact the current inhabitants. 96 Individuals like Sert criticise Moses, claiming that the replacement buildings had no place in a modern city, arguing that the new building stock, consisting of concentrated low rise blocks lacking in innovation, would soon be as obsolete as the slums they replaced. Sert compares it with similar developments in London, saying that it only ‘scratches the surface’ of the deeper issue of the city. 97 This questions whether or not this massive urban renewal helped the city, or if it was even necessary at all. Another of Moses’ major projects was that of connecting the city with an expanse of highways, creating a city for the car more than the man. The Post War period saw booming production of automobiles to meet burgeoning consumer demand fuelled by the growing economy. Corporations such as Ford and GM were producing 25,000 cars a day. 98 Traffic had begun to dominate the city, a huge concern for many. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 saw 41,000 miles of roads 95 Gordon D. Mcdonald and Rosalind Tough. “New York: Social Action in Urban Renewal.” Land Economics , 42.4 (1966), pp. 514–522, p. 516. 96 Themis Chronopoulos, “Robert Moses and the Visual Dimension of Physical Disorder: Efforts to Demonstrate Urban Blight in the Age of Slum Clearance”, Journal of Planning History 13 , (August 2014): 207-33, pp. 208- 209. 97 Chronopoulos, p. 215. 98 Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), p. 895.
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