In 1965, as part of President Johnson's Great Society, Congress created the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a cabinet-level agency consolidating federal housing and urban functions previously held by the Housing and Home Finance Agency. HUD took charge of public housing, mortgage programmes, urban renewal and, increasingly, fair-housing enforcement. Its first secretary, Robert C. Weaver, became the first African American member of a US cabinet. The department centralised federal influence over the development of American cities.
HUD gave urban and housing policy a permanent cabinet seat and became the principal federal instrument shaping American metropolitan development.
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