The activities of the Community Development Corporation (CDC), founded in 1967 to alleviate urban poverty in the United States, are analyzed in this book. The overall strategies used by the CDC, including the acquisition of existing businesses, development of new businesses, investments in physical assets of the community, assistance through loans and technical services to community entrepreneurs, and participation with the private sector interests in joint ventures, are described. A case study of the Union Sarah Economic Development Corporation indicates that rather than meeting its avowed objective "to break the cycle of poverty in low-income communities by arresting tendencies toward dependency, chronic unemployment and community deterioration," the CDC has become "a creation in the service of its own bureaucracy" and "serves the purposes of its own management." Because CDCs have failed to help poor people improve the quality of their lives, it is contended that the CDC concept be abandoned and funding denied to such programs in the future. Nine tables are included. (Author/WI)