ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how the New Deal and postwar liberalism that shaped national urban policy were dismantled and replaced by a very different set of presumptions and policies commonly known as neoliberalism. The administration's Urban Direct Action Grant Program, part of Carter's "new partnership", focused on subsidizing private investment in "distressed" cities. The administration developed a Partnership for Sustainable Communities that sought to bring elected officials together from throughout a metropolitan area to plan for the region's development and coordinate the programs of federal agencies and departments. Suburban areas and rural communities, feeling the impact of urban-style problems, will increasingly find their interests more congruent with city agendas. New urban struggles involve long-time residents, who have become increasingly angered by gentrification that now pits middle-class residents against the very affluent. The backlash against an urban entrepreneurialism that ignores the needs of the poor and the middle class reflects changes in the broader political economy.
