Model Cities Program

The concept was presented by labor leader Walter Reuther to President Johnson in an off-the-record White House meeting on May 20, 1965.

[1] In 1966, new legislation led to the more than 150 five-year-long, Model Cities experiments to develop new anti-poverty programs and alternative forms of municipal government.

Model Cities represented a new approach that emphasized social program as well as physical renewal, and sought to coordinate the actions of numerous government agencies in a multifaceted attack on the complex roots of urban poverty.

In 1969, the Nixon administration officially changed course; however in the majority of cities, citizen-participation mechanisms continued to play an important role in local decision-making.

Other evaluations have identified both failures and success in the Model Cities program, with its limited effectiveness attributed to a combination of complicated bureaucracy, inadequate funding, and competing agendas at the local level.

The cut-through provides a path for a four-lane highway, a CSX railroad line, and the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, which snaked through the downtown area, to eliminate almost yearly flooding.