organized. The theory was that this would make it difficult to mobilize local resistance to EDA plans.
The consequence, however, was that it was difficult to find local leaders that could organize meetings and help get things done.
Had the EDA chosen a city with an effective political machine, like Chicago, the impact on local employment might have been far greater.
Indeed, in their study of social assistance, Piven and Cloward point out that the ‘‘street-level bureaucrats’’ of the city of Chicago distributed welfare payments to recipients effectively during the 1950s and 1960s, whereas in New York, it took political pressure from newly organized groups
representing the poor to open up city administration to these under-represented citizens (1971, n. 41, 335–6; Lipsky 1980)
Thus, in practice, the impact of the procedures for implementation depends upon local political structures and patterns
of political mobilization and not simply the formal rules.