White House Rolls Out New Regulations To Diversify America’s Neighborhoods
[guest post by Dana]
The Obama administration, believing that there is no problem too big or small, real or imagined, that a little governmental social engineering can’t fix, has released its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule in an effort to eliminate any lingering “segregation” in America’s neighborhoods and communities:
When the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, it barred the outright racial discrimination that was then routine. It also required the government to go one step further — to actively dismantle segregation and foster integration in its place — a mandate that for decades has been largely forgotten, neglected and unenforced.
[T]he Obama administration will announce long-awaited rules designed to repair the law’s unfulfilled promise and promote the kind of racially integrated neighborhoods that have long eluded deeply segregated cities like Chicago and Baltimore. The new rules, a top demand of civil-rights groups, will require cities and towns all over the country to scrutinize their housing patterns for racial bias and to publicly report, every three to five years, the results. Communities will also have to set goals, which will be tracked over time, for how they will further reduce segregation.
However, given that racial segregation in housing is already illegal, what is the real goal in re-making our neighborhoods? Stanley Kurtz suggests that it’s not about racial integration but rather it’s about economic integration:
Race and ethnicity are being used as proxies for class, since these are the only hooks for social engineering provided by the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Like AFFH itself, today’s Washington Post piece blurs the distinction between race and class, conflating the persistence of “concentrated poverty” with housing discrimination by race. Not being able to afford a freestanding house in a bedroom suburb is no proof of racial discrimination. Erstwhile urbanites have been moving to rustic and spacious suburbs since Cicero built his villa outside Rome. Even in a monoracial and mono-ethnic world, suburbanites would zone to set limits on dense development.
Moreover, as evidenced by the four goals of the AFFH, it’s far more than just housing being impacted:
[I]mproving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation; reducing racial and ethnic concentrations of poverty; reducing disparities by race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability in access to community assets such as education, transit access, and employment, as well as exposure to environmental health hazards and other stressors that harm a person’s quality of life; and responding to disproportionate housing needs by protected class.
The White House has been very quietly readying the finalization of the AFFHR, and with good reason:
With the Department of Housing and Urban Development ready to release new regulations meant to diversify wealthy neighborhoods, American voters overwhelmingly say that it is not the government’s job to try to bring those of different income levels to live together.
The poll questioned 1,000 people who are likely to vote and determined that 83 percent of respondents say it is not the government’s job to diversify neighborhoods in America so that people of different income levels live together, but 8 percent say that it is a role for the government and 9 percent are not sure. An additional 86 percent say that government should not play a role in deciding where people can live, while a small 8 percent says that the government should.
Crazy Americans, right?
And while the White House offers this manipulative rationalization of the AFFH:
“Unfortunately, too many Americans find their dreams limited by where they come from, and a ZIP code should never determine a child’s future,” Julian Castro, the secretary of the department of Housing and Urban Development, said Wednesday in a written statement. “This important step will give local leaders the tools they need to provide all Americans with access to safe, affordable housing in communities that are rich with opportunity,”
Kurtz leaves readers with a reminder of what could happen if Republicans wake up and push back:
[T]he political implications go deeper still, to every level of government. Westchester County, New York, where AFFH has had a dry run of sorts, is now administered by Republican county executive Robert Astorino. Many forget that before the Obama administration tried to force Westchester County to cast aside its own zoning laws and build high-density, low-income housing at its own expense, Westchester was a liberal Democratic county run by liberal Democrats. After all, this is where Bill and Hillary Clinton live. At the local level, the Obama administration drove Westchester into the arms of the Republicans. The same thing could happen nationally, at every political level. But only if the frog wakes up and jumps by November of 2016.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 7/9/2015 @ 9:52 amThe left is, has, and always will be about control. They know that they can live your life and make your decisions better than you.
Roman (0bfd6d) — 7/9/2015 @ 9:56 amI’d be racist about this but since they took away the Confederate flag I can’t.
CrustyB (69f730) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:14 ami hate it when they put projects right next to normal people
what’s even worse though is when you have projects and/or section 8 losers on either side of normal people to where you get all this criminal-element foot traffic between the two
there goes your property values and your dogs are always barking and you have to get a gun
i just hate it
happyfeet (a037ad) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:15 amI don’t have time to see if Kurtz accurately describes the AFFH. But I know that he’s misleading when he discusses Westchester County politics, which he describes as (before Obama) having been “run by liberal Democrats.” The fact is that the county has had 8 County Executives since 1939, and 6 of them have been Republican. In 2002 the County voted for the Republican for governor by 23 percentage points. Currently, 10 of the 17 members of the County Board of Legislators are Democrats.
In other words, I’m not sure that Kurtz is a trustworthy source of information.
Jonny Scrum-half (95b419) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:20 amshht Mr. Scrummy Scrum you’ll wake up the frog
happyfeet (a037ad) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:22 amI think I can run for president and be elected, in spite of all of my faults and inadequate preparation,
if I can do one thing;
so please tell me if I can do it-
I would promise that my first act as president, even before going to the inaugural hoe-down/line-dance/polka festival/square dance
is to make an executive order that says
every law ever written and every regulation ever made will be enforced first on those who made them,
and if for some legal technicality it cannot always be done
every exemption documented will be posted on the web (for reals)
and if the current staff in various agencies will not comply
they will be fired by the end of the day
I bet if I had 1/2 of Trump’s money I could get elected with that alone as my campaign.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:33 amAfter Westchester County was compelled to enter an agreement with the federal government to desegregate the towns and villages within the county, Republican Robert P. Astorino was elected:
Dana (86e864) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:54 amThis will be Julian Castro’s only national accomplishment when he runs as Hillary’s running mate.
DRJ (1dff03) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:58 amThis is another area where we should just get behind these wonderful ideas.
Take for example taxes. More taxes – i say yes. We certainly could and should more fully tax employees who receive benefits provided to said employees by collective bargaining agreements. In addition, why are agreements that limit the ability of a employer to fire an employee not considered as part of the full compensation received by the employee? That benefit should be taxed to the employee receiving that benefit. Here is another, we now have laws that limit the ability to deduct compensation for CEO’s above $1 million. I say, why not extend this to the entertainment industry. No employer should be able to deduct the compensation to an employee or consultant when it goes over $1 million for entertainment talent.
With these new zoning changes, I suggest we start calling for the Federal government to immediately start enforcing this policy in the following locations: Buildings that face central park Manhattan. Palo Alto california. How about Mission Bay and the Financial District in San Francisco and how about Mailibu and Beverly Hills in Los Angeles.
I really think all of us need to get behind these movements big time.
Jeffrey (2eddb6) — 7/9/2015 @ 11:01 amJonny @5, the way you cherry pick data is convincing evidence that you are not a reliable source of information.
This is like Obama reaching back to the Crusades to make the moral equivalence argument to defend what Muslim countries (not just ISIS) are doing now.
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/01/248039354/a-battle-for-fair-housing-still-raging-but-mostly-forgotten
When even NPR is calling Westchester liberal, and more recent data backs that up, I’d have to say you’re full of manure and Kurtz is not.
Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/9/2015 @ 11:04 amIn 2002 Westchester county overwhelming voted for a Republican governor. The kind of governor who could only get elected in a place like New York.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa581/reportcard_table.html
Even NPR would laugh at the contention that voting for Pataki is evidence that Westchester county anything but liberal.
Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/9/2015 @ 11:17 amPeople live where their means allow them to live. People need to have access to jobs. How are people who can’t afford a home in a specific area going to also afford getting to the more expensive grocery store that’s further away? How are they going to get to their jobs, to public offices or conduct business if they are located in rural areas and can’t afford transportation?
Idealism is always so short sighted.
Fangbeer (f2e935) — 7/9/2015 @ 11:31 amWestchester isn’t liberal just like the MFM isn’t liberal. Just ask half-sack.
JD (b88516) — 7/9/2015 @ 11:47 amSteve57 – I didn’t say that Westchester wasn’t liberal. I simply disputed Kurtz’s false assertion that before the county was “run by liberal Democrats” until Obama “drove Westchester into the arms of the Republicans.”
By the way, the settlement in 2009 that supposedly was Obama’s doing was the result of a lawsuit filed in 2006, well before Obama.
Jonny Scrum-half (95b419) — 7/9/2015 @ 12:02 pmSome things never change. Because unionized, inner-city schools are such abominations, the socialist solution is to homogenize all schools by “diversifying” neighborhoods. The assumption is that this will lift the newly diversified schools and provide a decent education to the kids consigned to their tender care. This is the equivalent of the socialist policies in England immediately after WWII. The lefties there noticed that some people used butter, others margarine, and those that could afford neither used lard. This was obviously unfair, and so they forced all three commodities to be mixed to make a foul smelling- and tasting sludge, and that was the only thing that Englishmen could buy for their morning toast or cooking needs. My Dad traveled to the UK often during that time, and he stayed in hotels that were exempt from this craziness because the geniuses that came up with this policy didn’t want to discourage tourism. He would wrap up a few tabs of butter and drop them into his briefcase which he then shared with his British colleagues to their great happiness.
This leveling failed because everyone detested the stuff, and try as they might, the Labor tyrants couldn’t convince people that it tasted just great. The school (and crime) problems confronting urban residents in Democrat controlled municipalities and counties are only understood through statistics. Demagogues feast on statistics, especially when their agencies are the ones creating the lies. And the frequent crises that erupt are exploited as opportunities to seek more money and societal controls to “fix” the problem.
So we have a more difficult problem, but there are precedents, and the end result will be chaos just as it always has been. It will just take a few more lost generations before the electorate understands that their memories of public education are just memories and nothing more.
And, of course, those wealthy residents who were supposed to send their kids to the now ruined schools will find other alternatives. Just as Obola has for his kids in the District of Columbia.
bobathome (f50725) — 7/9/2015 @ 12:10 pmAs mentioned in Kurtz’ article, the recent “disparate impact” decision [Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project] may well be more damaging to individual freedoms than the ObamaCare and gay marriage decisions.
By a 5-4 vote, with Justice Kennedy writing for the majority, the Court held that the Fair Housing Act allows lawsuits based on disparate impact. This decision will be the sledge hammer behind HUD’s [read Obama’s] utopian plans euphemistically called “regionalism” to determine where and how you live:
Be prepared for your local zoning laws to be attacked by the Federal Government based on their alleged disparate impact on the poor, the black, the Hispanic, the, etc., etc., etc. because your town’s zoning laws don’t allow the construction of public housing next to you. If you think this is an exaggeration, look at a disparate impact suit that St. Paul had to defend concerning its building code:
Justice Alito’s dissent, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project.
Walter Cronanty (f48cd5) — 7/9/2015 @ 12:11 pmI can’t wait to see Section 8 housing in Malibu, and a Christian settlement in Dearborn, MI.
But the regime has learned well at the feet of the master.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=dr.+zhivago+scene+returns+home&qpvt=dr.+zhivago+scene+returns+home&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=88CEB94D7189117C878388CEB94D7189117C8783
Patricia (5fc097) — 7/9/2015 @ 12:19 pmI propose a prototype alpha phase program to test these new HUD rules in the neighborhood where the Obamas retire.
Neo (d1c681) — 7/9/2015 @ 12:41 pmAgain, Neo, our betters exempt themselves, supporters, friends and family just like other laws and Obamacare.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/9/2015 @ 12:46 pmAnd have seen some hints that Julian Castro might be Hillary’s running mate.
Judy Eaton (29f139) — 7/9/2015 @ 1:34 pmI nominate Pacific Heights, Georgetown, and Hyannis to kick off this program.
in_awe (7c859a) — 7/9/2015 @ 1:35 pmIn Southern California there is the Southern California Association of Governments which plans housing throughout the region. About 4 years ago Irvine was the lucky city to be focused on by SCAG. SCAG has the force of state law behind it, so compliance with its rulings is required.
SCAG has told the city of Irvine that it is expected to produce nearly 36,000 new housing units, including 21,000 units that working families can afford (i.e. workforce housing) over the next seven years.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/housing-132950-affordable-irvine.html
in_awe (7c859a) — 7/9/2015 @ 1:46 pmAstorino basically beat incumbent Dem Andy Spano like a drum exactly because of the federal court mandates of Judge Leonard Sand. Spano was willing to take a torch the their homes’ values, Astorino vowed to fight it ( and has). Even lefties in tony Westchester took notice when Sand tried to bring “affordable housing” to their towns.
Dreams are nice, but there’s a cost to everything.
Steve Sailer has chapter and verse about how loopy this “research” is, as if zip code are the only variable without taking into account parents (plural) and whether they are supportive and productive.
These socialists remind me of the scene in “Dr. Zhivago” when Zhivago goes back to his old house to see it’s being ransacked by a revolutionary mob.
Bugg (5f4a83) — 7/9/2015 @ 1:58 pmPatricia-thanks for the “Zhivago” link.
Bugg (5f4a83) — 7/9/2015 @ 2:01 pmThis is way harder than it sounds. A while back there was a move around here to force all communities to have a percentage of their housing stock be low income housing. I honestly don’t remember what the percentage was or if this was a federal or state effort. Anyhow, five things happened. 1. the NIMBY was strong, 2. developers/builders were not interested in constructing apartments that were not consistent and up to snuff with their other work especially if the government was involved, 3. many villages had existing zoning and covenants that limited building height, density, multi- family use, and had acreage requirements (many homes carried those restrictions on their deeds), 4. villages had long term operating budgets based on taxation of homes and condos within a certain range, 5. lots of older communities have NO build able space and any new construction in those towns requires tear downs. The cost of the land is astronomical–even if the government were applying eminent domain.
There’s a good bit of section 8 housing in some of the older areas of the close-in suburbs of the metro area, but in the so called “wealthier” areas the whole thing pretty much just died out and faded away for the reasons I listed above.
Good luck with this, Julian Castro.
elissa (b02620) — 7/9/2015 @ 2:08 pmAnd that was sarcasm, Julian.
elissa (b02620) — 7/9/2015 @ 2:17 pmWe had the same thought, Bugg.
It’s not fiction any more.
Patricia (5fc097) — 7/9/2015 @ 2:26 pmpeople just need to start lying about their ethnicity when they do the census I think this way the fascist failmerican government will have no choice but to go eff itself
problem solved
happyfeet (a037ad) — 7/9/2015 @ 2:34 pmWhy do illegals insist on riding bicycles on the right hand shoulder coming at you?
Maybe obama could name a bike czar.
mg (31009b) — 7/9/2015 @ 2:52 pmBecause people live in Westchester to be around law-abiding citizens who push their children hard, volunteer on the school science team or coach the Little League teams, and run for Planning Board and School Committee.
A tremendous amount of the value of a piece of property is based on who your neighbours are as human beings. Yeah, rich towns can provide great services that other towns merely do a competent job of, but normal human beings want to escape the criminal element and be around civic-minded people.
I grew up in a very middle-class suburb. Other kids’ parents made my life a lot better when they carpooled to school, volunteer coached my science team and softball team, were on the PTA, and did career nights. My dad coached girls’ basketball for twenty years. We definitely had some kids whose parents just didn’t have a lot of (or any) money, but it’s a small enough number that everyone else could pitch in and cover for them. There also wasn’t that much of a difference in values – one of my friends grew up very poor, but graduated number 4 in the class. It was not an issue of not valuing hard work, suffice to say.
It blows my mind that any human can make it to voting age and NOT understand why this new Obama policy is mind-blowingly stupid.
bridget (606c39) — 7/9/2015 @ 3:12 pmShorter version: you can’t social engineer values into people, and people want to be around people who share their values.
bridget (606c39) — 7/9/2015 @ 3:13 pmBecause that’s the way they should ride them. They can actually see you coming as opposed to you sneaking up on them. And you can see that they see you.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/9/2015 @ 3:13 pmI like this option.
mg (31009b) — 7/9/2015 @ 3:15 pmhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-09/making-guns-cool-high-schools-embrace-shooting-as-hot-new-sport
Hey mg, I’m 64 but back in junior high in South Philly I was on the shooting team. No Sh!t. We carried our bolt action .22 rifles to school in a bag, tossed them in the cloak room and took them to the “range” at 3pm. The range was the rear of our football field where the ground rose up for the ramp entrance to the Walt Whitman Bridge! Yes! We’re shooting targets and cars are whizzing by into Jersey. Try that today.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/9/2015 @ 3:29 pmbridget,
I agree with your comments but I think liberals are vehemently opposed to those values. Your values are too much like Judeo-Christian religion, which they oppose, instead of their preferred religion of secular tolerance.
DRJ (1dff03) — 7/9/2015 @ 3:30 pmI once lived in a middle-class community. It was nice and productive until the city was compelled to provide X amount of affordable housing and available homes ended up becoming Section 8 housing. In just a very short time, the once middle class community turned into a smaller version of the inner-city where the news residents came from. They brought their values and lifestyles with them. The beauty of a strong work ethic and ambition is that one has the ability to pick and choose where they want to live. So I moved. There is a reason people work hard and are productive. It’s freedom. In light of this ruling, it is as absurd for someone who doesn’t work hard and produce to live where I live in the same way it is for me to expect to be able to live in a penthouse overlooking Central Park.
Taking more choices away from people just produces a more dependent people. And then no one benefits. Everything becomes artificially propped up.
Dana (d85ff0) — 7/9/2015 @ 3:49 pmI live in an unbroken sea of single-family houses. Just recently, the city has been approving high-density apartments on what used to be C1-zoned lots. Gone is a restaurant and a liquor store. Replacing them, on a mere acre of land bordered by a half-dozen SF homes, is a 5-story apartment building with 200+ units. This has been approved over unified community opposition. Now they are proposing the same thing across the street on the site of another restaurant.
People wonder why this is happening. I’m sure that it will be blamed on developers and not the people who make the policy the developers are following.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 7/9/2015 @ 4:06 pmThe contradiction that I can’t reconcile:
When non-blacks move into predominantly black neighborhoods, many blacks and their self-styled community “leaders” complain bitterly about the allegedly pernicious effects of “gentrification,” which is essentially a buzzword for a blatantly racist attitude masked in the guise of more benign concerns about rising rents and such. But, essentially, it boils down to “We don’t want non-blacks moving in to ‘our’ ‘hoods.” Which is exactly the same attitude that was condemned — rightly — as racist when expressed by whites towards blacks who moved into predominantly white neighborhoods.
So, if blacks are complaining about non-blacks moving in to “their” neighborhoods, which is essentially integration via natural free market and demographic forces, why does the federal government need to get involved in a ridiculous centralized planning scheme to “integrate” neighborhoods that it claims allegedly lack some utterly contrived, pseudo-statistical, nonsensical paradigm of what passes for some self-aggrandizing apparatchik’s notion of multi-racial Utopia?
Guy Jones (173efd) — 7/9/2015 @ 4:15 pmKelo the Kennedy compound!
malclave (4f3ec1) — 7/9/2015 @ 4:27 pmSCAG has told the city of Irvine that it is expected to produce nearly 36,000 new housing units,
I served on the Mission Viejo planning commission for a few years and have a few comments. First, the California state legislature works with “public interest law firms” and developers of Section 8 housing to ratchet up the required “affordable housing” every couple of years, even in built out communities like Mission Viejo, which has no vacant land anymore. The developers fund the law firms which then sue the city. The legislature assists by upping the percentage of “affordable housing ” required.
The real catch is if they succeed in restricting resale of the units. Then sales plummet because the buyers can’t make any money selling, That result is that huge projects of rental units are going up all over. Mission Viejo has little land but they are going up in Irvine and Laguna Niguel. I think they are not going to be that desirable because some of them are in crummy locations with very limited parking and access.
They look like future slums to me, especially if the current real estate bubble pops.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 7/9/2015 @ 4:38 pm35-
mg (31009b) — 7/9/2015 @ 4:39 pmThose were the days, Rev.
Never have a prayer today.
My dad, who is 87, living in Mn. is getting a crossbow for deer hunting next year. Says he wants to learn a new weapon!!
His neighborhood is mighty safe.
When white people leave bad areas, it’s called white flight (even when middle class blacks leave, like from Detroit). When white people move back in, it’s called gentrification.
IOW whatever white people do, it’s wrong.
So this HUD plan is more of the same “thinking.” Nothing is mentioned about economics keeping people out, or why people can’t afford a better house.
It’s always: white people are wrong.
Patricia (5fc097) — 7/9/2015 @ 4:45 pmGateway pundit has another pretty decent companion piece to Dana’s. One thing is clear. Obama and his appointees do not have sufficient time remaining in office to pull off the permanent changes in city and suburban structure that he and his ilk would like. It is a long term process and it must be halted. This is just one more reason that in 2016 America must not elect anybody to the presidency with a Democrat or Liberal or Progressive or Socialist attitude or POV.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/07/figures-networks-silent-on-obamas-radical-plan-to-build-housing-projects-in-wealthy-suburbs/
In the meantime some suburbs and smaller towns will no doubt decide that “government grants” are not worth the pain and aggravation of ruining their tax base and political careers.
elissa (b02620) — 7/9/2015 @ 5:07 pmI wonder if people who say government shouldn’t decide where people live will change their minds real quick if you try to relax zoning laws in their hood.
nbf (4aae12) — 7/9/2015 @ 5:14 pmrip Kenny Stabler
mg (31009b) — 7/9/2015 @ 5:18 pmnbf, although I frequently disagree with zoning laws they are local. People in their “hoods” as you put it at least have skin in the game when they are making development decisions. Some ass hole bureaucrat in Washington has no business tell us in Willow Grove how we should develop our neighborhood any more than you do.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/9/2015 @ 5:24 pm#38: Kevin, they did the same thing to West Seattle. I think you will find that those 200 apartments are about 50 parking spaces short of the needs of the residents. Look for all sorts of interesting arrangements in the blocks around the building. As the streets become congested with parked cars, look for the city to declare one side of the street “No Parking”. Next, look for enhance enforcement of the no parking regulations. Pretty soon you’ll see cars parked on what used to be front lawns. Meanwhile, at your local high school, drop by 10 minutes before classes end. You’ll find 10 or 20 buses, and the entire police force in another 10 or 20 police cars, hoping to thwart any drive-by shootings.
Move now, while you can.
bobathome (5b5810) — 7/9/2015 @ 5:54 pmR.I.P. Kenny “The Snake” Stabler, legendary Oakland Raiders quarterback
Icy (797871) — 7/9/2015 @ 6:13 pmI only wish scum like Johnny Scrote would experience being taken down by a pack of jackals like the kid in Cincinnati.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/9/2015 @ 6:20 pmRecall in 2010 when Prom Queen’s executive inexperience and incompetence became embarrassingly obvious and his praetorian guard in the LHMFM defended him with articles like this?
Conor Freidersdorf in Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/conorfriedersdorf/2010/11/18/the-presidency-is-too-big-for-one-man/
And the forementioned Newsweek article, by Daniel Stone:
I wouldn’t expect any of these self-important Democrats with bylines to respond to lowly me, but where are there complaints about the central planners taking over local zoning, along with campus “yes means yes” bedroom policing, dictating “transgender” curriculum and bathroom usage in order to commandeer local school boards, etc., etc., ad infinitum?
Were they sincere then that, no, it wasn’t that Obama was incompetent, it was just that the scope of government had grown too large?
Or was it just an argument of convenience, the excuse du jour following the Republican landslide in 2010, that they offered up publicly while privately cheering on the centralization of power in D.C.?
I’m sure I know the answer, but I would love to rub these prostitutes’ faces in their hypocrisy.
Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/9/2015 @ 6:51 pmMike K,
Can you expand on your comment: who is pocketing the money and what recourse does the city have? If any.
Dana (86e864) — 7/9/2015 @ 6:53 pmIt blows my mind that any human can make it to voting age and NOT understand why this new Obama policy is mind-blowingly stupid.
If limousine liberals like Obama, et al, push for the two-faced, phony-baloney housing policy described in this blog entry, that’s perfectly fine. However, it needs to based on one condition: That they personally live in a neighborhood where the nearby major intersection is Martin Luther King Jr Blvd and Caesar Chavez Avenue—based on comedienne Chris Rock’s joke that if you’re ever visiting an American city and have gotten lost, and look up and find yourself on streets with those two names, get the hell outta there!)
Mark (a5c255) — 7/9/2015 @ 8:42 pmThis is not new. The only consistent effect has been to drive down property values in the afflicted neighborhoods.
Most poor people are not poor by bad luck. They have poor habits and won’t change them. They set low standards for themselves and others.
Of course not all poor people are like that BUT those who aren’t do not remain poor for long.
Estragon (ada867) — 7/9/2015 @ 9:15 pmYou’ll find 10 or 20 buses, and the entire police force in another 10 or 20 police cars, hoping to thwart any drive-by shootings.
Bob, there have been few Anglos in LAUSD for decades now. In the 70’s a federal judge ordered LAUSD to fully integrate its schools across the thousand-square-mile district. Black kids were being bussed from Watts to the Valley and Valley kids were supposed to go to school in Watts. Of course, every parent whose kid was supposed to spend 3 hours each day on a bus for the privilege of attending a gang-ridden school suddeny found the cash to go private. So the domino fell to the next kid and pretty soon LAUSD was all black, poor white and Hispanic.
Twenty years later the Anglo population of LAUSD is single digits. I have been told that some parents moving into my affluent neighborhood attempted to sign their kids up to neighborhood schools only to have the admissions people tell them they were crazy.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 7/9/2015 @ 10:46 pm“People in their “hoods” as you put it at least have skin in the game when they are making development decisions.”
And if you change the zoning law to allow previously excluded uses the new entrants also have skin in the game.
nbf (4aae12) — 7/10/2015 @ 5:23 amIf who changes the zoning law? You? Me? Or the folks that live there?
Apparently nbf, you don’t comprehend when you use the term “new entrants” you are saying new people who’s skin wasn’t in the game before but who now want to change the game, sometimes by force, to benefit themselves. You know, interlopers. Outsiders. Profiteers. Politicians.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/10/2015 @ 5:45 am“Apparently nbf, you don’t comprehend when you use the term “new entrants” you are saying new people who’s skin wasn’t in the game before but who now want to change the game, sometimes by force, to benefit themselves”
An example of a new entrant would be someone that buys property (not sure if actually owning property counts as enough “skin in the game” for you) and wants to use it for a use that is prohibited by zoning laws. A separate point is those who want to live somewhere also count as having skin in the game. After all, they’re going to be in the resulting community!
nbf (4aae12) — 7/10/2015 @ 5:51 amSo now you want to be a smart-azz? A person who buys property is expected to know what the lawful use of that property is. Exactly what part of “prohibited by zoning laws” escapes you? Obviously you don’t own jack sh!t or you’d know that.
Wrong again. People who “want” to live someplace do not count as having skin in the game because “wanting” something does not make it so. They may want that skin but until they do live in the community they do not have that skin. When you say “going to be in the resulting community” you admit that currently they are not in the community and therefore should have zero say about what goes on with zoning in that community. In other words, nbf, mind your own business.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/10/2015 @ 6:21 amyou have to be careful these days or a bunch of pliggamers might roll up into your neighborhood
if you go to the grocery store and somebody’s bought up all the chef boyardee products that’s a warning sign that you got an infestation of the pliggamers
do NOT panic
well I would panic actually
happyfeet (a037ad) — 7/10/2015 @ 6:30 amSave your breath, Hoagie. “Nbf” is a serial sophist.
JD (3b5483) — 7/10/2015 @ 6:45 amAnd, if actually put into place and “affordable” built, it would lower the property values of the higher-end housing, pushing many of those residents “underwater” on their homes.
If you keep track of housing issues — something I have to do, given my profession — you’ll see that homebuilding has mostly recovered at the higher and middle ends, but lower end homebuilding has not, and for a couple of very good reasons:
Our esteemed President doesn’t like the fact that the American people actually have some freedom, because the freedom to buy what you want, when you want, where you want, limited only by your ability to pay, hasn’t yielded the results the Commissariat wants to see. Remember, the left are for freedom of choice on exactly one thing!
I’ve said it before, only half-jokingly: the only way to integrate neighborhoods is through assigned housing. Don’t think that President Obama wouldn’t try that if he thought he could get away with it.
The economist Dana (f6a568) — 7/10/2015 @ 6:56 amWhich goes back to my Presidential campaign proposal, if President Obama wants it, he can have it. He can have an apartment in abuilding filled with illegal immigrants as neighbors.
If elected that will be part of my 1st day’s executive order agenda.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 7/10/2015 @ 7:00 amAnd if Obama doesn’t want to do it, he’ll have to explain why.
R.I.P. Omar Sharif
Icy (c2ecad) — 7/10/2015 @ 7:05 amI s’pose that I must be a raaaaacist, because we bought our retirement property in Estill County, Kentucky, which is 99.07% White, 0.11% Black, 0.24% Native American, 0.03% Asian, 0.06% from other races, and 0.49% from two or more races. 0.53% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
Of course, it’s a very poor county, with very low housing prices; if blacks aren’t choosing to buy in Estill County, I’m sure it’s all my fault.
The obviously racist Dana (f6a568) — 7/10/2015 @ 7:15 amComing from an overseer raising his boot over your neck:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150705/18174231556/spain-government-goes-full-police-state-enacts-law-forbidding-dissent-unauthorized-photography-law-enforcement.shtml
Roll over Amerikkka.
DNF (208255) — 7/10/2015 @ 7:21 amTwenty years later the Anglo population of LAUSD is single digits. I have been told that some parents moving into my affluent neighborhood attempted to sign their kids up to neighborhood schools only to have the admissions people tell them they were crazy.
The public school system is dominated by people of the left, both teachers and administrators, who love, love, love politicians like Barack and Hillary, who hate, hate, hate the idea of school vouchers, yet a good number of them, if residing in a typical urban American setting — and based on surveys — will send their own kids to private or parochial schools.
Did Barack and Michelle ever send their own two precious daughters to schools where most of their classmates would have looked like Obama’s son if he had a son, or that were full of children from the demographic he’d love to have the US personally greet and pick up with air-conditioned buses at the US border? The answer to that is a very difficult one to know (also, is the South Pole cold?).
Mark (a5c255) — 7/10/2015 @ 7:47 amOn the bright side, nothing turns a liberal into a conservative like being mugged.
nk (dbc370) — 7/10/2015 @ 7:50 am“If who changes the zoning law? You? Me? Or the folks that live there? ”
The government.
“People who “want” to live someplace do not count as having skin in the game because “wanting” something does not make it so.”
Good point. So “skin in the game” includes those who end up in the community.
nbf (4aae12) — 7/10/2015 @ 8:04 amSorry, we just don’t have enough of your money:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/07/opm-hack-digital-body-count-21-5-million/
Government is a comprehensive failure which cannot but worsen.
DNF (208255) — 7/10/2015 @ 8:10 amNbf – your asshattery is special, no matter which of your 42 names you choose to use.
JD (8c5938) — 7/10/2015 @ 8:27 amYesterday, I picked up my daughter from Urbana and we drove back to Chicago. Though farmland, a truck stop, Kankakee even. Then I missed the turnoff for I-55 and got out in Chinatown instead. It was great. We drove through Chinatown, and then into a “mixed area” past Benito Juarez High School which shocked my daughter by looking so much better than her high school (she likes modern architecture I guess). Then I took a four block detour to go past the Criminal Courts Building and Cook County Jail. I asked her if she could smell the jail smell and she could. She also learned what razor wire is. Past the jail, still on 26th Street is Little Village, Chicago’s biggest Mexican neighborhood. Then we took Route 66 home to a West Chicago suburb. She knew that area — her Greek tutor lives by there. You know, all those people looked like human beings? Who would believe it?
nk (dbc370) — 7/10/2015 @ 8:48 amNot any more.
http://www.thehoya.com/i-was-mugged-and-i-understand-why/
Because…
?!?!?
…white privilege.
Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/10/2015 @ 9:08 amI hope you and your daughter later got down on your knees and said a prayer of thanksgiving to the central planners in Washington D.C. for arranging everything to provide these lessons.
Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/10/2015 @ 9:11 amNo, Mr 57, because of stupidity. As a lib in the first place — the writer “is a senior in the School of Foreign Service” at Georgetown, which puts him on the Marie Harf career path — he is having all of the common sense educated out of him, and you can only have the common sense educated out of you if you aren’t very bright in the first place.
He was mugged, but not injured; he had some property stolen. If he had been with a wife at the time — assuming that such a wimp could ever get a wife — and she had gotten roughed up or sexually assaulted, maybe, maybe! he’d have felt different, but I seriously doubt that he has enough testosterone to have been outraged.
The brutally honest Dana (f6a568) — 7/10/2015 @ 9:31 amHe is the ultimate Pajama Boy.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/10/2015 @ 9:48 amMr. brutally honest Dana, stupidity is always presumed when I reference someone who thinks they deserve abuse because they buy into the “privilege” lie.
It’s interesting you note his testosterone deficiency. It seems to me that all the grievance mongers from the gender and ethnic whining departments expect a role reversal. That white men become the beaten wives in an abusive relationship, and that every time we get slapped we should agree that we brought it upon ourselves.
Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/10/2015 @ 9:49 amThey’re getting that signal from the Republicans in Congress.
nk (dbc370) — 7/10/2015 @ 9:52 amO/T, but sorta related to my comment @51:
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/07/10/breaking-opm-head-resigns/
We’re supposed to hand over responsibility for social engineering of the suburbs to a bunch of central planners who can’t even handle personnel files?
Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/10/2015 @ 10:13 amCan you expand on your comment: who is pocketing the money and what recourse does the city have? If any.
The developers fund the “public interest law firms” and they then sue the small cities alleging inadequate “affordable housing” The state legislature (80% D in California) keeps ratcheting up the percentage of “affordable housing” required for each city. I don’t know that the developers also fund the legislature as that seems to be automatic D in this state that is now majority Hispanic.
Money changes hands and cities try to find places to shoehorn new projects. When I was on the commission, for example, a project was approved at an old factory site. The developer had the brilliant idea of building a subsidized project next to a senior citizen unsubsidized project. He planned to put a fence between the two so the children from the Section 8 housing could not run over and pester the seniors.
I went by it a few weeks ago and noticed no fence. I guess the Fire Department probably nixed that idea.
I see no recourse short of changing the legislature or governor back to R. When I was on the commission, I once suggested that the developer of a big new apartment project (700 units) scatter subsidized units through the project instead of building these instant slums. Not interested.
The parking issue is a big one. We have an apartment complex near the local college. The rules for parking are one place for every 600 square feet or something like that. The two bedroom apartments are about 1200 square feet so they have two parking spots but there are four cars in the apartment so there are cars parked all over.
The neighbors who have single family homes can’t have anyone over for dinner as the streets are solid cars both sides so we go to permit parking. Each year, the neighbors three blocks away come in for relief and the permit zone extends another block or two.
With housing prices where they are and student loans where they are, I don’t see an alternative. Not in California.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 7/10/2015 @ 10:25 amPeople shouldn’t expect free homes. Maybe they also shouldn’t expect free parking.
nbf (4aae12) — 7/10/2015 @ 11:04 amDiversity is equivalent to crowd control.
DNF (208255) — 7/11/2015 @ 8:47 am