Jane Jacobs in her fight against Robert Moses and his power hungry plans to establish multiple projects in the New York City area had shown the need of the public to fight back against dictatorship like power that can arise in political leadership. However Jacobs also saw the rising power of cities and the power that comes with leaders manipulating nationalism and xenophobia in order to fulfill their political and economic agendas. Donald Trump is one such person who used xenophobia and an increased sense in nationalism to go from one of New York City’s most wealthiest real estate investors to the head of arguable the most powerful and influential government in the world. The article states that this is what Jane Jacobs precisely wanted to avoid as she states in her books that this is the coming of the New Dark Age where the views of the people can be distorted in this form of “mass amnesia” and manipulated to fulfill the agendas of people like Trump who can use the increased sense of nationalism and fears such as xenophobia to climb the political ladder and establish policies not entirely beneficially for the majority.
In a way Donald Trump parallels Robert Moses in this way in how he was able to control the people by promoting this idea that he was changing New York City or in Donald’s case America for the betterment of the people when in reality they were only able to do this by manipulating the people providing a sense of security and a promise for a better future. Theorizing Neoliberal Urban Development by Brian Tochterman talks about Jane Jacobs significant role in taking down the goliath that was Robert Moses, representing the views of the people and fighting against policy that sought to transform New York City into a segregated automobile driven highway city instead by rezoning and relocating hundreds of thousands of individuals who have rights to the property that would’ve been forcefully taken from them. Donald Trump is the epitome of what Robert Moses tried to do, manipulating the people by promoting his agendas for his future of a gentrified and segregated New York City, only this time on a national scale.
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