The Politics of U.S. Urban Agendas: Ideology, Government and Public Policies

The chapter offers a detailed examination of the American national urban agenda and policies from the early decades of the twentieth century to the present day. It explains the complex web of demographic and macroeconomic dynamics that affect urban agenda-setting. Aspects of political culture and ideology are thematized in discussing policy design features of “explicitly urban” and “non-urban” governmental policymaking, concluding that the governance of democratic federalism is a determinant feature in American urban policies. The U.S. case is well suited to come up with generalizations on urban agendas. It offers a wide range of innovative formulations of urban-related program policies, which have been a source of policy transfer for policy design. It is a critical case for policy learning from both an understanding-oriented and an action-oriented perspective, and it is also a paradigmatic case as it has a prototypical value and sets the standards for policy research on urban agendas. U.S. urban policy over the time frame considered herein has been a reference model in urban policy studies, acknowledged worldwide.