Enacted in 1966 as part of President Johnson's Great Society, the Model Cities Program funded coordinated physical, social and economic improvement in selected poor urban neighbourhoods, eventually in around 150 cities. Unlike the demolition-led urban renewal that preceded it, it emphasised rehabilitation, social services and, controversially, the participation of residents in planning decisions affecting their districts. Administered by the new Department of Housing and Urban Development, it tried to concentrate federal resources on the inner-city poor. Underfunded and politically contested, it was folded into block grants in 1974.
It marked a shift from clearance to comprehensive, participatory neighbourhood improvement, putting resident involvement and the social dimensions of poverty onto the American planning agenda.
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