History Commons^™

“By The People Most Affected”: Model Cities, Citizen Control, And The Broken Promises Of Urban Renewal, Sarah Rachel Siegel

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation stands at the intersection of civil rights social history, political history, and urban planning. Among the first academic work to recognize the significance of the Model Cities War on Poverty program, this dissertation explores how residents tried to make American cities safe places for poor people to live as full citizens. It argues that neighborhood activists in St. Louis and around the country used the War on Poverty and Model Cities specifically to make a bid for a permanent role in city planning for their neighborhoods. This was no less than an attempt to alter the relationship between …