People, Race and Place: American Support for Person- and Place-based Urban Policy, 1973–2008

This article examines an idea that is often asserted but rarely tested: that Americans associate big cities with African Americans and that, as a result, racial attitudes influence support for urban policy. Thirty-five years of public opinion data show that cities are in fact a ‘racialised’ concept, and that the relationship between racial attitudes and support for place-based urban policy is as large as that between racial attitudes and support for person-based assistance to the poor. The sources of these racial associations, however, appear to differ. Attitudes about race and cities correlate more closely with attitudes about crime, while attitudes about race and person-based redistribution correlate more with opposition to residential integration. Lastly, the evidence shows that even Americans who do not hold prejudiced views associate urban problems with African Americans, suggesting that social policy, be it person- or place-based, will always need to contend with racial attitudes.