This book examines national fair housing policy from 1960 through 2000 in the context of the American presidency and America's segregated suburban housing market. It argues that a major reason for suburban housing segregation lies in Richard Nixon's 1971 fair housing policy, which directed federal agencies not to pressure suburbs to accept low-income housing. After exploring the role played by Lyndon Johnson in the initiation and passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the book contrasts Nixon's politics of suburban segregation with the politics of suburban integration espoused by his Housing and Urban Development secretary, George Romney. Nixon's fair housing legacy is then traced from the Ford administration through the Clinton presidency and in the decisions of Nixon's federal court appointees. Charles M. Lamb has been involved in fair housing research for thirty years. He was a fair housing specialist with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C.

Some theorists argue that cooperative intergovernmental relations are critical to policy implementation in the United States. This assertion is explored in the context of fair housing enforcement by comparing favorable administrative outcomes in fair housing complaints at the federal, state, and local levels from 1989 to 2004. What conclusions can be drawn from this systematic comparison of intergovernmental enforcement in one policy area over an extended period of time? First, cooperative federalism works well in fair housing enforcement. Second, of special significance, state civil rights agencies resolve complaints in favor of complainants nearly as often as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and localities sometimes do so even more frequently.

Housing segregation and discrimination remain contemporary American problems despite 40 years of policy initiatives aimed at combating them. Since strong presidential support and active bureaucratic enforcement of fair housing laws should reduce these problems, we investigate variation over time in presidential support for the Fair Housing Acts of 1968 and 1988 (Title VIII) and their enforcement. Our findings first indicate that President Nixon's interpretation of Title VIII notably weakened its scope and enforcement, but the most liberal outcomes in Title VIII policy and enforcement since the 1960s ironically surfaced during the Reagan years. Then merging two unique databases, we explore variations in Title VIII enforcement and find some fluctuation across enforcement indicators. Our study suggests that housing discrimination and segregation can be expected to continue absent strong presidential support and active bureaucratic enforcement of Title VIII that encourages a significant role for state and local civil rights agencies.Segregation and discrimination continue in the American housing market despite 40 years of major policy initiatives aimed at combating them. Consider housing segregation. Since the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968), studies have repeatedly concluded that residential segregation is widespread and persistent, that it remains high but has

This article systematically compares the efficiency of federal, state, and local civil rights agencies in enforcing national fair housing policy over time, with special attention to the South. State and local agencies processed Fair Housing Act complaints more efficiently than the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), southern agencies outperformed HUD, and the probability that a racial discrimination complaint resulted in a favorable outcome for the alleged victim was the same for complaints originating within and outside the South. These findings suggest that the fair housing enforcement model may provide useful concepts for sharing power in other policy areas in the American federal system.

This article explores how “New Federalism” under President Ronald W. Reagan manifested itself in the implementation of fair housing policy. We examine the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) and how it led to state and local civil rights agencies playing an increasingly vital role in implementing the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Relying on data provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), we show that a significant number of fair housing complaints were shifted from HUD to state and local agencies.