In 1967, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cosponsored a conference on “Soil, Water, and Suburbia.” To some observers, no doubt, the partnership of the two agencies seemed odd. The agricultural bureaucracy was one of the oldest in the capital, but the creation of HUD had come only two years before. What had brought the departments together?

The conference was a sign of a new “urban consciousness” in Washington. In the postwar decades, almost all the nation's population growth had come in cities and suburbs, and intellectuals and policymakers slowly began to come to terms with the growing power of metropolitan America. Historian George Mowry summed up the momentous transformation in the title of a survey of the United States from 1920 to 1960: The Urban Nation. To meet the needs of the metropolitan majority, legislators and administrators around the country struggled to rethink the responsibilities of government, and the reconceptualization affected everything from the apportionment of legislative seats to the structure of government departments. To remain relevant, the old bureaucracies with rural roots started to pay more attention to the urban environment. The joint conference in 1967 thus was important as a bridge between the past and the future.