Word: controller
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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...constituent support for their power clash with City Hall. They have been ringing doorbells, collecting signatures on a petition backing the CDA board, and talking to the people they are trying to serve, finding the problems they are supposed to combat. And in the process of campaigning for "Resident control for Cambridge Model Cities," the staff members are uncovering some interesting facts...
First of all, there is no resident control for Cambridge Model Cities. There never has been, and there probably never will be. The program has been directed from above, like all other bureaucracies, and the overwhelming majority of the people who supposedly "run" the program have returned a verdict of massive indifference and ignorance concerning Model Cities...
This probably is the way it ought to be. I can hold little hope for any attempt for true full-time neighborhood control over programs to serve the neighborhood. These are working class people who have neither the time, the inclination, nor the training to pilot a comprehensive program of day care or job training or youth counseling toward a desired abstract goal. Furthermore, it is always risky to turn the public purse over to a small group, telling them to help themselves...
...reversal of policy within HUD. In line with "New Federalism"-and also in line with lower priorities for social welfare legislation-HUD has increasingly accented the role of city government in CDA decision-making, as opposed to neighborhood action. Cambridge, which at least on paper provides for more local control than any other Model City in the country, was a logical target for the re-alignment process...
...concept of resident control, in fact, was doomed from the start-a glorious idea that simply couldn't work. The major benefits from CDA have not diffused to all neighborhood residents-although the Cambridge project is the second smallest in the country. The ones who benefit from Model Cities services are the aggressive types, the go-getters, the volunteers-precisely the ones who need assistance the least...