In their new book, Mobilizing the Metropolis, Philip Mark Plotch and Jen Nelles describe how the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey — the nation’s first public authority — changed in ways that would make it unrecognizable to its founders. Over the past 100 years, the agency’s mission has evolved from improving rail freight to building motor vehicle crossings, airports, office towers, industrial parks, and even a failing commuter rail line. Often viewed with admiration during its early years, it became a target of criticism as it took control of airfields and marine terminals and constructed large bridges and tunnels. Mayors of New York and Newark argued that it should be broken up, echoing others that deemed it a “super-government” that must be reined in.

Yet despite its travails, the Port Authority overcame hurdles that had frustrated other public and private efforts. It built the world's longest suspension bridge, and took a leading role in creating an organization to reduce traffic delays in the region. How did it achieve these successes? And what lessons does it offer to other cities and regions? In a time when public agencies are often condemned as inefficient and corrupt, its history of struggle — between the public and private sectors, democratic accountability and efficiency, regional and local needs — offers lessons for both governmental officials and social reformers. Plotch and Nelles have produced what Jim Burnley, the former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, calls “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.”