This article seeks to place the federal government's new Community Development program in perspective in relation to both past urban programs (particularly urban renewal) and current policy emphasis (particularly neighborhood preservation). All these elements are policy responses to the same fundamental forces that have been causing neighborhood decline in American cities for many decade, and that still confront us as we grapple with basic urban problems across the nation.

In overview fashion, this article describes some of these key causal forces, discusses the process of neighborhood decline they have generated, analyzes some past policy responses to such decline,describes changes in likely future policy responses resulting from the Community Development program, and draws some conclusions. Many of the facts and conclusions set forth herein have been derived from two major studies undertaken by Real Estate Research Corporation(RERC) for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD).One study was the most extensive analysis of the urban renewal program ever undertaken; the other was a nation wide review of locally initiated neighborhood preservation efforts. Despite the emphasis on HUD-funded research, I want to emphasize that all the views and conclusions set forth in this article are my own.They do not necessarily represent the views or policies of HUD or any of our other clients, and in many cases differ quite sharply from HUD'spositions.

This report is part of the collection of scanned historical documents available to the public.