Just as the Watts riots had spurred Kennedy into action, they also convinced the Ford Foundation that new approaches and greater effort were needed to eradicate inner-city deprivation and blight. Kennedy’s CDC blueprint for urban reform was eagerly taken up by the foundation, which, realizing the limitations of War on Poverty organizational models (which the foundation itself had played such an important role in producing), agreed that “efforts to deal with depressed areas must be comprehensive and long-term; social, physical, environmental, and economic redevelopment efforts are all
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