Creative Federalism, Empowered Citizens: Shaping the Great Society City

Author: Bell Clement

Dissertation School: The George Washington University

Abstract:

This dissertation investigates the creation of a national urban policy and an American ideology of cities in the context of Great Society policymaking and the urban turmoil of the 1960s. The aim of the project, most broadly stated, is to document the process by which policy thinking, originating either from the offices of federal policymakers or in meetings convened by street organizers, leads to social action that succeeds in changing urban conditions. To pursue this question, I examine the creation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the formulation of Model Cities, HUD's first major policy initiative (created by the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Redevelopment Act of 1966), and its implementation in the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C.

Specific purposes of the project are to: identify the impact of constraints within the federal policymaking apparatus on urban policy decisions and outcomes; identify the impact of shifting demands and consequent redefinition of roles among the national state, the nation's cities, and citizens on urban policy decisions and outcomes; document the evolution of American thinking about the city during this period, and the influence of that evolution on policy decisions; measure the impact of federal policy action and of community action in shaping urban policy in its implementation phase in Washington, D.C.'s experience with Model Cities; and measure the impact of community ideologies of the city in framing the national debate about cities.

This research proceeds using a mix of sources, including legislative materials, agency records, contemporary media accounts, contemporary scholarly commentary, community records, papers of individuals, and oral histories to determine the extent of the success of federal policymakers and community activists in achieving their intended goals for Washington, D.C. communities under the Model Cities program.

The intellectual merit of this project lies in its focus on the impact of HUD and urban policymaking in the Great Society reform effort: While both the war on poverty and the civil rights initiatives of the Johnson administration have been extensively researched, no thorough policy history of the formation of HUD and Model Cities exists. This study places the formulation of urban policy in context by showing the impact not only of changes within the federal government but also of changes in relations among components of the federal system on policy decisions. The research will show the interaction between the rapid evolution of social thought and social policy concerning cities during this period; I argue that social thought's framing of issue is an important determinant of the scope of policy options. This study puts community action into the picture as an essential component of the policymaking continuum, documenting the influence of District residents in shaping Model Cities outcomes.

The impact of this research is to make a detailed, well-documented contribution to the debate on the effectiveness of federal urban initiatives, on the potency of citizen action in shaping urban communities, and on the impact of ideology in influencing policy options. By identifying the influences that shaped the national urban policy apparatus in its founding phase, the research identifies structures that continue to influence urban policy decisions. By identifying the influence of social thought and of citizen action in policymaking, the research identifies a new set of factors relevant to determining why policy initiatives succeed or fail.

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