The Political Salience of Urban Crisis in the United States: The Federal Response

Abstract

This chapter begins with an overview of the evolution of the federal government’s urban policies in the United States, with particular attention to the substantial expansion initiated in the 1960s.¹ The main purpose of this overview is to determine what fuelled the expansion of federal commitments and responsibilities at the municipal level. This treatment is followed by the presentation of empirical analyses testing the extent to which the allocation of federal aid to cities between 1960 and 1980 reflected the interests of the state in a way consistent with the theoretical propositions developed in previous chapters.