cal opposition to subsidized housing that might promote integration, the federal government predicated its housing policies on local acceptance. Public housing, launched during the 1930s, remained a small program targeted on the very poor. Publicly subsidized housing currently comprises only about 4.5
percent of the U.S. housing stock. The opposition of the building
the power of local governments and federal underwriting of decentralization
carved U.S. metropolitan areas into distinct jurisdictions defined by income and race.
industry to public spending in this area and the local option to accept or reject subsidized housing kept it in the cities and out of the suburbs. Crucially, public housing was also mciaUy segregated, ensuring that pub-hc housing for African Americans would be located in the already crowded and deteriorating inner city, fed the ,power of local governments and the federal underwnting of decentralization carved metro pohtan areas into distinct jurisdictions defined by in come and race. In this process of metropolitan fr 7^ cities were disproportionately left   oulder the burden of metropolitan poverty In addi
tion, fragmentation spurred interiors! r Md
ereumgly,	iosers these contesBC'  .  -
From Bad to Worse
Policy changes in the 1980s drove deener i.
cult for cities to address the deepening poverty witl their borders.
Since the 1950s, several federal government pi grams had cushioned the spatial inequalities that   companied the suburban exodus. The urban renet program helped local governments underwrite ma physical renewals of their central business districts the 1960s, Democrats undertook new urban prograi such as Model Cities, that focused on improving i quality of life for poor urban residents. The creation the Department of Housing and Urban Developmi in 1965 signaled the special place that urban aid wo have at the federal level. With the election ofRich; Nixon in 1968, assistance for poorer localities cont ued as a legitimate federal government responsibil No-strings-attached revenue sharing and Commur
Development Block Grants i acted under Nixon used differ approaches but reflected a sim sensibility that localities, and es] ctally cities, required special from the federal government.
Until the l')80s, helping ci was good politics for Democr The urban vote, together w southern Democrats, had bi the electoral core of the pa since the New Deal. The dot nance of' urban interests wit the party as a whole was cleai Congress, where Democrats fr suburban areas in the North vo heavily in favor of aid to cities
Demographic shifts during 1980s contributed to the polit eclipse of cities, however. In I1 the nation's population ' evenly divided among cities, si urbs, and rural areas. By 15 both urban and rural populati had declined, with cities becc ing poorer and more hea  composed of minorities. Ne: half the nation lived in the s
urbs. The terms of partisan competition did not t long to register these changes. Republicans mobili a distinctive suburban political identity. During 1960s and 1970s central cities and suburbs in North and Midwest had tended to vote in similar rections; by 1980 the suburban and urban vote split sharply, with cities remaining the only Der cratic stronghold.
The declining political importance of cities reflected in the abandonment of many federal ur programs. The only programs totally eliminated dui the 1980s were those that particularly benefited cities 1981 Congress ended the Comprehensive Employe and Training Act, which cities had used (unofficially bolster the ranks of their employees. General reve sharing, which provided extra funds for localities, en in 1986. Urban Development Action Grants were el inated and subsidized housing severely cut. Ove grants for cities were cut almost in half.
194
Cities fared only slightly better at the hands of the states. Long dominated by rural interests, state governments instituted reforms during the 1960s and 1970s that equalized urban representation. But by that time, suburban influence overshadowed the cities in manv statehouses. Although some states compensated cities for the withdrawal of federal aid in the 1980s, others took only limited steps or actually worsened cities  problems. State legislatures often rejected urban efforts to raise local taxes. States did little to guide the development that continued to spur the exodus from the cities, nor did they do much to improve possibilities for regional cooperation across city-suburban boundaries. Toward the end of the decade, recession-strained state budgets were simply unable to provide significant aid.
The Struggle to Survive
Cities were left alone to bear the twin burden of needy populations and a precarious economic base. To attract private development, urban leaders offered tax abatements and other incentives, in the process heightening interjurisdictional competition, draining future tax revenues, and reducing the scope for local public action. Other strategies, such as forming special taxing authorities within cities (with a variety of names such as Business Improvement Districts), further fragmented the public tax base.
The intergovernmental transfers that had helped sustain cities during the 1960s and 1970s represented a national recognition of the special fiscal burden cities carried because of the concentrations of poor within their borders. For the most part, the transfers did not directly serve the urban poor, or even appreciably stem the flight to the suburbs, but they did provide a cushion that allowed for high levels of public services such as libraries, police protection, and infrastructural maintenance to improve the quality of urban life. As these funds dried up, cities compensated by attracting private investment, often relying on tax abatements. This strategy increased private wealth in cities, but it precipitated a deterioration of urban public services that undermined efforts to rebuild an urban middle class and to stem the further decline of the poor.
Changes in industrial structure and the location of industry have also exacerbated the burden and political isolation of cities. The revolution in information technologies combined with the lack of metropolitan planning to deconcentrate economic activity. As new businesses and commercial centers appeared in suburban  edge cities,  the connections between city and suburb further attenuated. In a recent poll, 51 percent of metropolitan New Yorkers said that events in the city had hardly any effect on their lives.
The story of social policy decentralization, the reduction of federal aid to cities, and the divisions between cities and suburbs can all be told without mentioning race. But the preexisting concentrations of poor minorities in cities meant that each of the policy decisions discussed above had racially targeted consequences. It also meant that racial concerns and conflicts would affect the fate of any proposed solutions to cope with urban poverty.
43.	Race and Urban Poverty Britain s Cities: A Different Mix
In Britain, limited suburbanization and a vast public housing sector created quite different patterns of metropolitan development and population movements. County governments used their regional planning powers to restrict suburbanization at the same time that the central government underwrote public housing. Whereas the United States had sought to meet postwar housing needs by underwriting suburban homeownership, Britain rebuilt the housing stock with public housing. By the end of the 1970s, a third of British households lived in  council housing.  The very size of the British public sector made some level of income mixing inevitable.
And council housing was not solely confined to the city. Most early postwar development was in the form of small units built in  new towns  well beyond areas of existing settlement. During the 1960s the government redirected public housing to the cities to combat suburban sprawl and deteriorating urban living conditions. Here, both spatial constraints and architectural fashion favored the highrise project. For the most part, the middle-class suburban boroughs of outer London were able to limit the amount of council housing built
in their areas.
By the early 1980s, 43 percent of London s council housing was concentrated in poorer inner London, but 29 percent was still in the central business district and 23 percent in outer London. Compared with the United States, economically disadvantaged populations were still much more dispersed.
Britain s postwar sorting of populations did have some negative consequences for racial mixing, but it did not create sharp racial segregation. Initially the system for allocating public housing (one element of which was length of tenure in the borough) worked against members of racial minorities, most of whom were recent immigrants. Although this discrimination was substantially remedied by the Race Relations Act of 1968, minorities had missed out on the council housing built outside the central city. Minority populations therefore tended to concentrate in the inner city.
Yet the extent of segregation within the cities was tempered by integrated public housing Because there were no preexisting racial ghettos, public housing was sited without racial considerations in mind. Much public housing was built in working class districts, which were not racially defined. Moreover, with the less favorable tax treatment of homeownership and without the abundance of financing that encouraged suburban homeownership in the United States, mo of Britain s working class was not able to make its suburban exodus until the 1970s.
The lack of local government autonomy also stemmed the impulse to fragmentation and movement. In the highly centralized British politick system local authorities exist at the pleasure of the central government. Local authorities have access to only one independent source of revenue, the property tax, or  rateP  which until recently was levied on property owners and businesses. Because local governments have so little autonomy and discretion in financing, the dynamic  f interlocal coinpen  n   ecn.nl m .be
1?
8. THE ETHNIC FACTOR: CHALLENGES FOR THE 1990s
United States is far less evident. Throughout the postwar era, British cities remained poorer than their surrounding suburbs, but they continued to house a significant part of the British working class.
Moreover, the central government redistributed resources to reduce territorial inequalities. Most local expenditures were financed by the centrally provided rate support grant, calculated in part on the basis of local need. An  inner city  policy, modeled after that in the United States, offered special assistance to the poorest areas.
A Decade of Thatcherism
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher s new brand of Conservative politics put an end to the postwar consensus. Her government reduced the equalizing role of
the central government and left localities more on their own and less able to cope with t