Successful Federal Implemenation: The Erosion of Neighborhood Influences in Model Cities

Abstract

This study of St. Louis' Model Cities program argues that the barriers to effective intergovernmental implementation that are stressed in the literature did not prevent HUD from accomplishing its goal of weakening the influence of poverty-area neighborhood organizations in the program. HUD, primarily through its willingness to withhold Model Cities funds until the neighborhood organizations' role was weakened, was able to alter such factors as local political alignments and the disposition of local implementers rather than having these remain impediments to implementation. HUD was willing to push this course of action due to the exclusion of representatives of the poor from the HUD subsystem.