Cavanagh becomes successful at receiving money from the US federal government through the model cities program and he was the only elected official to serve on Johnsons force.The Model Cities Program was an element of President Lyndon Johnsons War on Poverty and it operated five-year projects on 150 cities to develop new programs to fight poverty and find alternative forms of municipal government.Detroit became one of the largest Model City projects. Detroit caught the public and medias eyes with its efficient use of the model in which they used $490 million to turn a nine-square-mile section of the city with 134,000 residents into a model city. There were two different reactions to how the funds were used, Detroit's political and business elite, city planners and black middle class supported the way the funds were used because they wanted the federal funding to assist with economic growth by protecting the central business district and constructing new revenue generating structures. However civil rights and poor residents protested saying that federal renewal funding should be used to replace deteriorating housing with new public housing or low-cost housing. This program was demolished in 1974 after major race riots in most of its target cities.