Both Republican and Democratic national urban policies hold that federal spending stimulates local activities. This article critiques major normative assumptions informing national urban policies. It analyzes data from 62 Permanent Community Sample cities that suggest weak or insignificant effects of federal programs on local spending. This nonintuitive result is interpreted by introducing four types of local political cultures: Republican, Democratic, ethnic, and New Fiscal Populist. Each responds to inter-governmental grants following its own rules of the game. Selective pursuit or avoidance by cities of intergovernmental grants that are most consistent with local political cultures explains the weak overall effects of grants.
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