Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York cast New York’s “master builder” Robert Moses as the villain in the greatest urban planning drama of American history. But where’s the hero? Jane Jacobs fought Moses three times, and won three times. Her most well-known book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, transformed the planning profession and shattered its orthodoxy for destructive “urban renewal” housing projects and freeways slashing through cities.

Yet there’s no mention of Jacobs in The Power Broker. Caro wrote a chapter on Jacobs, but it had to be cut to keep the already-enormous tome to a manageable length. Anthony Flint has essentially written that missing piece. His book, Wrestling with Moses, documents how Jacobs came to live in Greenwich Village, came to understand so much about urban planning when few in the profession did, and came to be the great activist who stopped Moses’ seemingly unstoppable power in lower Manhattan.

Tomorrow at 1 pm, join us for a chat with Anthony Flint about Jacobs, Moses, their great battles, and many things you probably never knew about Jane Jacobs. Post your questions in the comments here and we’ll queue them up for Mr. Flint, and order the book, or even get the Kindle edition for only $10 and read it tonight.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.