Housing Policy Under the Reagan Presidency: The Demise of an Iron‐triangle

This paper analyzes the changing politics of housing policy during the Reagan administration. The analysis applies the concept of “subgovernments” to the housing coalition. The demise of the housing subgovemment is analyzed within a theoretical framework that includes “policy type” as an important explanatory variable. Specifically, this paper argues that as housing policy shifted from “distributive” to “redistributive” due to a curtailment of funding, the housing coalition came under pressure from external farces and ultimately fragmented into competing (rather than cohesive) interests. As a result, the U.S. commitment to housing provision was drastically reduced.