Targeting Federal Grants: The Community Development Experience, 1950–1986

Abstract

This article examines the degree to which federal community and economic development programs target federal assistance to the nation's neediest communities. Grant allocations to cities with populations of 50,000 or more were examined for six major federal urban programs during 1950–1986. Federal programs that include both needs-based eligibility and allocational features were found to achieve the highest levels of targeting. The analysis further shows that while urban conditions in the nation's most distressed cities continued to deteriorate during the 1980s in both relative and absolute terms, grant allocations under the major federal urban program, Community Development Block Grants, have not responded to the changing incidence of urban hardship.