Fitting the Community Development Block Grant Program to Local Politics: Who is the Tailor?

This article examines the CDBG decentralization experiment inPhoenix, Scottsdale, and Casa Grande, Arizona through the firsteight years of the Community Development Block Grant (FY 1976–FY1983). These settings shared certain general political/legalcharacteristics, but differed greatly along important dimensions,including jurisdiction size, economic conditions, experiencein HUD programs, staff interest and experience, and form ofinteraction between HUD and local officials. CDBG resulted ina distinctive set of local community development activitiesin these three jurisdictions. Yet despite HCDA's billing asan act of decentralization, these specific local activitieswere not the result of pure local determination. Rather, CDBGoutcomes in the three communities were found to be the end productof a series of choices and responses made following substantialinteraction among federal and local staffs and local electedofficials. ^*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AmericanPolitical Science Association Annual Meeting, New York City,September 1978. Data and support for this paper were providedby the Brookings Institution Longitudinal Field Network EvaluationStudy of the Community Development Block Grant, under the initialdirection of Richard Nathan and latter direction of Paul Dormnel.The analysis provided in this paper is, however, the sole responsibilityof the author and does not represent the analysis or views ofthe officers, trustees, or other staff members of the BrookingsInstitution.