A massive public works project created to help relieve unemployment but also make a continuing contribution to regional planning; A relief program that built dams, controlled flooding, and brought electricity, and agricultural and industrial development to rural areas in the Tennessee Valley, which was hit hard by the Depression; A relief, recovery, and reform effort that gave 2.5 million poor citizens jobs and land. It brought cheap electric power, low-cost housing, cheap nitrates, and the restoration of eroded soil