The Rise of the Public Authority

In the late nineteenth century, public officials throughout the United States began to experiment with new methods of managing their local economies and meeting the infrastructure needs of a newly urban, industrial nation. Stymied by legal barriers, they created a new class of quasi-public agencies called public authorities. Today these entities operate at all levels of government, and range from tiny operations like the Springfield Parking Authority in Massachusetts, which runs thirteen parking lots and garages, to mammoth enterprises like the Tennessee Valley Authority, with nearly twelve billion dollars in revenues each year.

In The Rise of the Public Authority, Gail Radford recounts the history of these inscrutable government corporations, examining the ways they were established and the unprecedented powers that they have exercised over the last hundred years. Radford has mapped this institutional terra incognita, giving readers a grand tour of these institutions and the way that they operate, making a substantial contribution to our understanding of these pervasive but elusive mechanisms—and their implications for American political development.