Mobilizing the Metropolis

In May 2023, the University of Michigan Press released Mobilizing the Metropolis: How the Port Authority Built New York written by Dr. Plotch and Jen Nelles (senior research fellow at the Oxford Brookes Business School in England.)

About the Book

For over a century, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has been one of America's most powerful government agencies. It overcame enormous obstacles to build the world's tallest towers and longest suspension bridge, along with the planet's busiest bus terminal and bridge. What lessons does its history offer to other cities and regions in the United States and beyond? In a time when public agencies are often condemned as inefficient and corrupt, this history provides important lessons for governmental officials and social reformers.

Mobilizing the Metropolis reveals a struggle between the public and private sectors, the challenges of balancing democratic accountability and efficiency, and the tension between regional and local needs. It is an important and engaging account of a powerful governmental entity that offers durable lessons on collaboration, leadership, and the challenge of overcoming complex political challenges in modern America.

Praise

• Mobilizing the Metropolis is a gem. Not only does it artfully tell the story of the organizational evolution and successes of nation’s first public authority in the 20th century but also it underlines the critical importance of regional infrastructure projects—airports, bridges, tunnels, ports, ferries, terminals, and their connectors in forging the NY-NJ metro area into the powerful economic force it has become over the past 100 years. Most notable, it offers a pathway for the transformation of PANYNJ into an effective 21st century institution.”
  —Eugenie L. Birch, FAICP, Stuart Weitzman School of Design

• “Mobilizing the Metropolis offers an authoritative account of how the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey grew and shaped the metropolitan region. Exhaustively researched, it offers a trenchant analysis of the key factors accounting for the Port Authority’s spectacular rise and recent struggles. There are valuable lessons learned applicable to other public agencies and regions. This is a significant contribution to the study of public bureaucracy and infrastructure and should attract a broad audience.”
  —Steven P. Erie, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of California San Diego

• “Mobilizing the Metropolis is both the definitive history of the Port Authority and an impressive critical analysis of its evolution, strengths, and weaknesses over its century-long existence. Highly readable, it contains important lessons about how any public authority should, or should not, be created and operated.”
  —Jim Burnley, Chair, Eno Center for Transportation, Former United States Secretary of Transportation

• “Plotch and Nelles hit the mark with this tour-de-force review of major infrastructure project delivery and the golden rule of effective coalitions. They explain that, in order to succeed, projects must have crystal clear scope, positive, enabling stakeholder relations, and coalitions that are singularly focused on successful budgetary and schedule outcomes.”
  —Andy Byford, former Commissioner of Transport for London, president of NYC Transit, and CEO of Toronto Transit Commission

• “Plotch and Nelles offer a novel framework that identifies several factors that explain both the Port Authority’s successes and failures. Anyone who is interested in urban politics, regionalism, urban planning, state and local government, or more specifically in the New York metro area, will find this a fascinating book.”
  —Richardson Dilworth, Drexel University

• “This book provides a detailed economic history of the Port Authority of NY and NJ. Yet it is also a work that addresses a number of key questions concerning the political economy of large public organizations. Given the economic and cultural significance of the Port Authority and the key infrastructures for which it is responsible, this is an important contribution with international relevance.”
  —Iain Docherty, University of Stirling