The Federal Government and Urban Housing

Most notably, Hays calls into question the generally negative appraisal of housing programs that is widespread in the public policy and urban politics literature. He shows that although most of these programs have experienced major problems, none has been an unqualified failure, and most have improved the housing conditions of millions of people. Placing the federal government's attempts to deal with housing problems within a broader analytical framework by relating them to long and short-term political changes, Hays argues that the political variable with the most impact on the course of housing policy has been ideology--in particular, the ideological orientations of the various presidential administrations during the past sixty years.