Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a former Democratic congresswoman from Detroit who brought millions in federal funds to her hometown, but whose career was undone partly by the legal travails of her indicted son, Detroit’s ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, died on Tuesday in Fayetteville, Ga. She was 80.

Her death, at the home she shared with her daughter, Ayanna, was from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, her family said in an announcement.

Ms. Kilpatrick served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1997 to 2011, sitting for most of that time on the Appropriations Committee and using that perch to garner funds for Detroit: for commuter rail and new bus lines, the Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University and other projects.

Between 2008 and 2010 alone, she secured more than $70 million in earmarks for her district. Her former spokeswoman in Congress, Kim Trent, estimated in an interview that Ms. Kilpatrick brought $2.5 billion to Detroit, helping to revitalize the city.

“The congresswoman’s former office is now a Gucci store,” Ms. Trent said. “She played a transformational role.”

In a struggling city that was to declare bankruptcy in 2013 — the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history — her funneling of federal dollars to Detroit was described by analysts as vital to the city’s survival.