Why Nothing Works

Dunkelman's argument is that American progressivism swung from a Hamiltonian faith in centralized power to a Jeffersonian suspicion of it, and that the second impulse — procedural safeguards, community review, veto points meant to check abuse — is now the main reason infrastructure and housing projects stall for decades. The historical tour through this pendulum is genuinely detailed, tracing how reforms meant to protect against corruption calcified into general-purpose obstruction. The weak point is the prescription: having diagnosed a problem of diffused authority, Dunkelman is notably vague about which decisions should be recentralized and who should make them, leaving the book stronger as autopsy than as blueprint.