ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Cities' Congress on Roads to Recovery within the context of changing domestic policies and the challenges they pose to cities. Many of the President's domestic policies are controversial. The election of Ronald Reagan as President brought about the most fundamental changes in the direction of federal domestic policy since the New Deal and the ascendancy of Keynesian economic policies in the 1960s. Events of the 1970s shattered the national mood of optimism and well-being, and laid the foundation for the Reagan Presidency. Shortly after assuming office, President Reagan proposed a far-reaching program for economic recovery focused on "supply-side incentives" for increased rates of savings and industrial investment. One year after implementing the Economic Recovery Program, President Reagan proposed a historic reordering of the nation's federal system of government, a "new federalism". The New Federalism and reorientation of federal urban policy poses a major challenge for cities to become increasingly self-reliant in responding to local needs.
