ABSTRACT
By tradition the American federal system rests upon two partners, the nation and the states. By practice the system has been modified to accommodate a third partner, the cities. The covert and indirect recognition given to the cities as members of the federal system continued well into this century. Four forces were to conspire to modify the practice of American federalism, however, from about 1930 onward. The year 1932 constitutes a sort of geologic fault line in the development of the federal system. Prior to that year the American partnership nominally had been limited to the national government and the states; afterward the cities played an increasingly active and overt role in the practice of federalism. How the cities and the national government work together in their direct relationships may best be discovered by examining selected joint programs in action. There are other ways both to identify and to appraise federal-aid programs of interest to the cities.
