Federal laws and programs that shaped planning
Housing acts, the Interstate highway program and the transportation laws that followed, NEPA, civil rights, fair housing and fair lending law, and the federal grant programs planners still use.
Lesson 10 of 40 · about 29 minutes
Learning objectives
- Describe the major federal housing laws since 1934 and what each changed.
- Explain the purpose and effects of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and later surface transportation laws.
- Summarize NEPA and the major environmental statutes planners encounter.
- Identify the civil rights, fair housing, and accessibility laws that shape planning practice.
- Recognize the federal grant programs planners still use and match each to its purpose.
Key concepts
Land use regulation is mostly a state and local power, but federal money and federal law have shaped American communities as much as any zoning code. The exam expects you to connect each major law to its core purpose.
Housing and community development
| Law or program | What it did |
|---|---|
| National Housing Act of 1934 | Created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which insured long-term, low-down-payment mortgages. It transformed home buying, and its underwriting standards favored new suburban, racially segregated development. |
| Housing Act of 1937 | Created the federal public housing program, run through local housing authorities. |
| Housing Act of 1949 | Declared the goal of "a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family" and launched urban renewal (Title I), which funded land clearance and redevelopment. |
| Housing Act of 1954 | Broadened urban renewal toward rehabilitation and created the Section 701 program of federal grants for local, metropolitan, and state planning, which paid for a generation of local plans until it ended in 1981. It required a "workable program," including a comprehensive plan, for renewal funding. |
| Model Cities (1966) | The Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act funded coordinated, comprehensive antipoverty and neighborhood improvement efforts in selected cities, with resident participation. |
| Uniform Relocation Act (1970) | The Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act requires fair treatment, relocation payments, and help finding housing for people and businesses displaced by federally funded projects, a direct response to the displacement caused by urban renewal and highway building. |
| Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 | Consolidated categorical programs, including urban renewal and Model Cities, into the flexible Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), paid by formula to "entitlement" cities and counties instead of through project-by-project applications. It also created the Section 8 rental assistance program, whose tenant-based vouchers are now called Housing Choice Vouchers. |
| Tax Reform Act of 1986 | Created the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), which states award to developers of affordable rental housing. It's now the main federal tool for building it. |
| National Affordable Housing Act (1990) | Created HOME Investment Partnerships, a block grant that states and localities use to build, buy, and rehabilitate affordable housing. |
| HOPE VI (1992) | Funded demolition of severely distressed public housing and its replacement with mixed-income communities, often with fewer deeply affordable units than before. |
| Choice Neighborhoods (2010) | Succeeded HOPE VI, pairing public and assisted housing redevelopment with investment in the surrounding neighborhood. |
The programs got a cabinet department of their own when the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was created in 1965.
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