proposals are heavily dependent on the availability 

 of accurate data, understanding of complex pro- 

 gram environments, and the capacity for rational 

 analysis of these factors. This is true in any agency 

 or department, but particularly important for 

 HUD. 



Research Program Perspective 



Many of the phenonmena around which HUD 

 must shape its programs are not yet well under- 

 stood. Although most people have an intuitive 

 understanding of the workings of their communi- 

 ties, analysis has begun to show that some commu- 

 nity problems may have counterintuitive solutions, 

 which ordinary experience and common sense 

 might not have suggested. 



For example, the Federal Housing Administra- 

 tion (FHA) programs, begun in the mid-thirties, 

 were a magnificently innovative response to the 

 need to restimulate homeownership after the de- 

 pression. The introduction of the long-term, low 

 down payment, equal monthly payment mortgages, 

 now taken for granted, was thought to be extreme- 

 ly risky by conventional lenders at the time. 



But 40 years later, if the effects of the FHA are 

 examined objectively, one must conclude that its 

 programs contributed strongly to the present prob- 

 lems of our center cities. Millions of middle-class 

 families were given new choices, and they opted 

 for suburban living, with the aid of FHA mort- 

 gages. The center cities were left with the very 

 rich, the very poor, and all of the problems that 

 followed. What member of the Congress or the 

 Executive branch could reasonably have foreseen 

 such a result? 



The dynamics of community change are com- 

 plex and interactive. To have anticipated the ef- 

 fects of FHA programs, policymakers would also 

 have had to have known and taken into account 

 the interactive effects of the massive Federal 

 highway program, the increasingly general afflu- 

 ence and the rise of the two- and three-car family, 

 the continued influx of the poor (including large 

 numbers of illegal aliens) to the center city, the 

 growth of crime, the deliberate self-insulation of 

 suburban communities from center city problems, 

 the rise of a strong union movement among local 

 government workers, and many similar factors. 



Because such complex and difficult considera- 

 tions are involved in every new program, the urban 

 policymaker must tread with great care. The urban 

 researcher's position is equally difficult. Currently 

 useful generalizations must not be oversold. The 

 limitations of data and analyses must be made 

 clear. 



118 HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 



Role of Research 



The scale and urgency of the day-to-day prob- 

 lems HUD faces make it necessary — and inevita- 

 ble — that its research program be primarily fo- 

 cused on policy-relevant projects of applied re- 

 search. With a relatively modest budget ($55 mil- 

 lion for FY 1977), it has not been possible, howev- 

 er desirable, to address more fundamental ques- 

 tions of housing and community development, 

 except as a subsidiary part of applied research pro- 

 jects, or except when applied work could not pro- 

 ceed without development of more basic knowl- 

 edge. 



By the classic definition of basic research (the 

 search for pure knowledge for its own sake) and 

 applied research (the search for a specific solution 

 to a known problem, having direct application) 

 nearly all of HUD's research would have to be 

 classified as "applied research." We see our work 

 not as "either/or" but a continuum, with some 

 more basic in nature. 



Urban study is among the most recent of the 

 formal areas of scholarly interest to have emerged. 

 It arises from an amalgam of other disciplines: 

 Economics, political science, sociology, social 

 psychology, demography, and the arts of architec- 

 ture and urban planning. Most work to date has 

 been in the class of case studies. Few are longitu- 

 dinal. Few have had the relative luxury of control 

 group observation. Few are generalizable from the 

 local event to the national case. It is also unfortu- 

 nately true that a great part of the work to date — the 

 bulk of which has been conducted by individual 

 researchers, at widely separate institutions, pursu- 

 ing questions of their own interest — has had little 

 relevance for local and Federal policymakers. It 

 has been in a form either not accessible or not use- 

 ful to a policymaker, or the questions studied have 

 been too narrow or not generalizable beyond the 

 particular case. 



Examples of Research 



HUD's research program has, in recent years, 

 begun to correct past problems and to provide 

 some direction and coherence to urban studies. It 

 has done so by the example of the priorities and 

 rising standards of its own work. This effort has 

 not been sufficient, but it has been a start. HUD's 

 new team of policymakers is strongly committed to 

 improving further the relevance and quality of its 

 own research and its leadership of the work of 

 others in the field. It intends to widen the dialogue 

 with its research counterparts in academia and 

 industry, to communicate HUD's needs and priori- 



