In the late 1960s, residents of Central Brooklyn joined a meeting about a new federal program, Model Cities. The meeting quickly soon The first community meeting in Central Brooklyn about a proposed new federal program, Model Cities, devolved into chaos and confusion. Community members invited to the meeting were skeptical about what they were hearing: A federal program had been launched, they were told, to address some of the problems facing the inner cities. Community participation was a key component of the program. Members of the community were asked to plan the programs and have a say in where the budget was allocated. Yet these members of the community were wary after years of government missteps and neglect. During the meeting, several stood up to demand an explanation, saying that they had had harmful experiences with city programs before and did not see how this one would be different. The central question underlying several of their statements seemed to be–How should we believe you? As one community member asked, “Can any government program be taken seriously by the people who live in the slums of our cities?” To these community members, the premise of Model Cities seemed too good to be true—A wariness that turned out to be correct, especially after looking at the disappointing end results of the program when it concluded in 1974.
