You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Home Front: Politix
Joe Biden’s disastrous plans for America’s suburbs
2020-07-23
[NYPOST] If you live in the suburbs or you’re a city dweller eyeing a move to a quiet cul-de-sac where your kids can play outside, you need to know about Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden
...Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids....
’s plan for a federal takeover of local zoning laws.

The ex-veep wants to ramp up an Obama-era social engineering scheme called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing that mercifully barely got underway before President Trump took office, vowing to stop it.

Biden’s plan is to force suburban towns with single-family homes and minimum lot sizes to build high-density affordable housing smack in the middle of their leafy neighborhoods — local preferences and local control be damned.

Starting in 2015, President Barack Obama
I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody...
’s Department of Housing and Urban Development floated a cookie-cutter requirement for "balanced housing" in every suburb. "Balanced" meant affordable even for people who need federal vouchers. Towns were obligated to "do more than simply not discriminate," as a 2013 HUD proposal explained. Rather, towns had to make it possible for low-income minorities to choose suburban living and provide "adequate support to make their choices possible."

Had the rule been implemented nationwide, towns everywhere would have had to scrap zoning, build bigger water and sewer lines to support high-density living, expand schools and social services and add mass transit. All pushing up local taxes. Towns that refused would lose their federal aid.

The rule was one of the worst abuses of the Obama-Biden administration — a raw power grab masquerading as racial justice.

In Westchester, County Executive Rob Astorino battled the Obama-Biden administration for years, successfully resisting the baseless smear of racism. Zoning laws limit what can be built in a neighborhood in neutral fashion, Astorino explained, not who can live there.

To be absolutely clear, denying anyone the chance to rent or buy a home because of their race is abhorrent and illegal. It should be prosecuted whenever it still happens.

African Americans have been steadily leaving inner cities and choosing suburban lifestyles, according to Brookings Institution data. Many families — of all races — want the peace of mind of letting their kids ride bikes around quiet neighborhood streets. That’s what zoning laws provide.

The real barrier to suburban living is money. Living in the ’burbs isn’t cheap. HUD Secretary Ben Carson
... a neurosurgeon who was under the delusion that being brilliant qualifies him to be president....
told a House committee last May that "people can only afford to live in certain places." It’s "not because George Wallace is blocking the door."

Biden and the equality warriors are using accusations of racism to accomplish something different. Their message is: You worked and saved to move to the suburbs, but you can’t have that way of life unless everyone else can, too.

Count on Trump to make Biden’s war on the suburbs a key issue in the election. In his Rose Garden news conference Thursday, the president came out swinging, warning that Biden would "totally destroy the beautiful suburbs" by "placing far-left Washington babus bureaucrats in charge of local zoning."

In response, the left and its media allies played the race card. As usual. On MSNBC, Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. said, "I hear the words of a racist." CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who knows what it might stand for...
accused the president of fearmongering "white suburban voters." But it’s CNN that is being racist — by assuming that only whites own homes in the suburbs.

Trump is talking to suburban homeowners of all ethnicities. If you buy a house in a neighborhood with quarter-acre zoning, you don’t want a high-density housing complex built at the end of the street.

The president won the suburbs in 2016, but polls show Trump trailing in the suburbs largely because of opposition from women. They need to focus on what’s at stake for their families.
Posted by:Fred

00:00