David Perry, "Building the City through the back Door:  The Politics of Debt, Law, and Public Infrastructure" Chapter 7 in Building the Public City  (Thousand Oaks:  Sage, 1995), 202-36.

1. What were the three areas of debate about infrastructure in the first half of the nineteenth century?
2. Perry writes:  "This notion of eminent domain . . . is at the heart of the American ambivalence over the provision of public works and the protection of individual freedom."  To what period(s) does he refer in this comment?
3. What does Perry (citing NY Senator Willam Seward) identify as the main reasons that the U.S. did not follow the European model for the development of infrastructure in the first half of the 19th Century?
4. What does Perry mean by "federal reticence?"
5. What was the relationship between urbanization, public health and infrastructure during the late 19th Century and the early part of the 20th Century?
6. Why does Perry claim that NY City's Triborough Bridge Authority is the "clearest exmple of the evolution of the public authority from a stopgap fiscal expediency into a permanent feature of American governance?
7. What did the public authority form of government lend to Robert Moses' career in developing NY City's infrastructure?
8. What does Perry mean by the "trapdoor," and how does he distinguish the back door from the trapdoor to financing infrastructure?