Obama Admin Moves to Diversify Wealthy Suburbs
This has broader implications
In July 2013, Obama’s “Department of Housing and Urban Development [created a] regulation broadening the obligation of recipients of federal aid to ‘affirmatively further fair housing‘.” Translation: in order for cities and states to continue receiving federal aid, they must begin diversification of their wealthier suburbs and neighborhoods by building Section 8 government housing in these areas.
In the face of heated public protest, on July 18, two local agencies in metropolitan San Francisco approved “Plan Bay Area,” a region-wide blueprint designed to control development in the nine-county, 101-town region around San Francisco for the next 30 years. The creation of a region-wide development plan–although it flies in the face of America’s core democratic commitment to local control–is mandated by California’s SB 375, the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008. The ostensible purpose of this law is to combat global warming through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. That is supposedly why California’s legislature empowered regional planning commissions to override local governments and press development away from suburbs into densely-packed urban areas. In fact, the reduction of greenhouse gases (which Plan Bay Area does little to secure) largely serves as a pretext for undercutting the political and economic independence of California suburbs.. . . . A regional plan that blocks traditional suburban development, densifies cities, and urbanizes suburbs on this scale is virtually unprecedented. That’s why the Obama administration awarded the agencies behind Plan Bay Area its second-highest “Sustainable Communities Grant” in 2012. Indeed, the terms of the administration’s grant reinforce the pressure for density. The official rationale behind the federal award is “encouraging connections” between jobs, housing, and transportation. That sounds like a directive to locate new residents–poor and minorities included–in existing prosperous communities.
In fact, HUD’s new emphasis on “connecting” jobs housing and transportation does more. In practice, bland bureaucratic language about blending jobs, housing, and transportation pressures localities to create Manhattan-style “priority development areas.” The San Francisco case reveals the administration’s broader intentions. Soon HUD and other agencies will begin to press localities directly, rather than through the medium of California’s new regionalist scheme. Replicating Plan Bay Area nationwide is the Obama administration’s goal.
A final Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule due out this month is aimed at ending decades of deep-rooted segregation around the country.
The regulations would use grant money as an incentive for communities to build affordable housing in more affluent areas while also taking steps to upgrade poorer areas with better schools, parks, libraries, grocery stores and transportation routes as part of a gentrification of those communities.“HUD is working with communities across the country to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all,” a HUD spokeswoman said. “The proposed policy seeks to break down barriers to access to opportunity in communities supported by HUD funds.”
Watch Megyn Kelly’s segment about this on The Kelly File:
If I might humbly offer a bit of advice to the White House, this is the wrong approach. Offering incentives to ship large numbers of people out of impoverished communities and into more prosperous ones doesn’t change the people. It only changes the community. If you want to raise up the standard of living in areas afflicted with poverty, start with some leadership. Empower those working to effect positive change, emphasizing greater focus on the community, the churches and the family. Make the communities safer. Rather than tearing down the police, help law enforcement create an atmosphere where residents feel safe in investing in their homes and opening businesses without fear of being looted. Let them hire more people from the neighborhood. Help the parents feel that their kids are walking to school through a safe neighborhood, not a war zone. The best public empowerment program in the world is still a job. Push struggling communities up from the grass roots rather than shipping them out without addressing the underlying problems. This is likely a generational change and I don’t expect Barack Obama to snap his fingers and make it happen overnight, but he could take the lead and start the process today.
The new HUD rule is really about changing the way Americans live. It is part of a broader suite of initiatives designed to block suburban development, press Americans into hyper-dense cities, and force us out of our cars. Government-mandated ethnic and racial diversification plays a role in this scheme, yet the broader goal is forced “economic integration.” The ultimate vision is to make all neighborhoods more or less alike, turning traditional cities into ultra-dense Manhattans, while making suburbs look more like cities do now. In this centrally-planned utopia, steadily increasing numbers will live cheek-by-jowl in “stack and pack” high-rises close to public transportation, while automobiles fall into relative disuse.
It will be interesting to see how Americans react to this idea. I suspect it won’t go over very well.
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Comments
I don’t have a problem with obeying our supposed Federal Masters. So long as we start by opening Martha’s Vineyard, Malibu, The Hamptons, Nob Hill, Newport and all the rich, progressive enclaves first.
This is perfectly rational, but the Collective is NOT.
See, this is aimed at the middle-class. The poor are pawns, and the really wealthy are exempt. Literally.
Animal Farm…like 1984…was not supposed to be a manual, but a warning.
There’s a pattern here, Obama has never taught anyone to build anything. I have no dog in the suburbs fight, but how is it any different from anything else he has done? Don’t learn to build your own neighborhood, community, town, country, school, public water supply, electric grid, judicial system, just move in with someone who has.
Not a single country in Latin America has improved during Obama’s presidency, he’s just brought some of their troubles up here. No water in CA, no XL Pipeline, no improved infrastructure; same old problems in Chicago, LA, Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis; banking, finance, the “one percenters,” the middle class – all the same. Race relations the same at best. Transparency? The Middle East, Russia, world peace – all the same, or worse. Take, take, take, it’s his MO.
It’s not clear that ANYTHING anywhere has improved during his presidency. Nobel Peace prize. The “One.” Phooey.
Then he chuckled about all the money he wasted on there being no shovel ready jobs after all; years later he says we need to improve the infrastructure.
Agenda 21
There you go. Consolidate the population into the metro areas and cities for more efficient centralization. We become increasingly dependent on the government for transportation, housing, entitlements, etc.
This is a step towards an ultimate goal of relocating the population as much into urban areas as possible where they’ll be centralized and rendered dependent on government for everything eventually.
This is nothing new. The concept was imposed statewide by the State of Washington’s antidemocratic ‘Growth Management Act’ of 1990, after the Legislature repackaged an Initiative of the same intent which had been roundly voted out by voters a few years earlier.
It only lacked the overwhelming power and funding/defunding abilities of the Executive-branch Federal HUD agency, and the power to mandate ‘diversity’.
But the basic pieces were in place: All towns and counties had to Make a Plan (it was a hiring bonanza for leftist urban planner types). A State-appointed Hearings Board was created, with full powers to veto the local land-use plans of elected County and City Councils, if not restrictive enough by the Board’s subjective standards. All cities had to draw a solid boundary of their allowable Urban Growth Area – also subject to approval of that appointed Board – inside of which all new residents must locate.
The object was to force Density, as a tool to make mass transit less unaffordable, by economic standards. Three-story crackerbox apartment buildings – many with no parking, to ‘get people out of their cars’ – are now spreading through Seattle, displacing its formerly comfortable single-family housing, and imposing skyrocketing rents and housing costs on its ever-more-cramped citizens.
Mr. Kurtz’s 2012 book ‘Spreading the Wealth’ is a detailed examination of Obama’s hope to Federalize that concept, via economic coercion.
“This is nothing new.”
lol. 1990, eh?
No, this is nothing new, but its modern day roots go back to the progressives of the Wilson era.
By forcing us out of our personal vehicles and into mass transport, they also offer the nightmare of having to be screened by a super TSA before (and maybe after) we board.
So, no gun or knife for you, Charlie.
I like very much that my neighborhood began diversification long before the idea became politically popular. At first there were just a few old Remingtons and Colts. Now there are all sorts of S&W’s, Berettas, Brownings, Glocks, Mossbergs, Rugers, Winchesters, FNs, AKs, you name it. We all feel so much more egalitarian now.
Diversity YAY!
And Kel-Tecs for the kids!
Democrats want to mandate “diversity”?
Okay, then force them to live, without any protection among the most violent “urban” populations we can find.
These Progressives are not fellow Americans. They are totalitarian enemies.
This stuff has never made any sense to me from a purely mathematical perspective.
Blacks are 13% of the population and Hispanic/Latinos are 17% (with significant overlap between those groups)
That means 1 Black person or Latino person for every 6-8 non-black, non-latinos (Asian, Caucasian, Native American, etc.). If social engineering PERFECTLY re-distributed everyone, about 10 houses in a 100 house suburban subdivision would be minority households (esp. since many Latino families tend to have more per household than other race/ethnicities…not uncommon to include multiple kids and even non-immediate family members).
Maybe my perception is off because the suburbs I have lived in usually had a nearby military base and seemed to have about this number. I just don’t see that they’d be changing much proportionally…other than socializing particular groups at the direct expense of others through taxation.
This is a step towards an ultimate goal of relocating the population as much into urban areas as possible where they’ll be centralized and rendered dependent on government for everything eventually. This is a primary, basic plank in the socialist plan for America.
Lucky for us, ISIS will put a stop to this.
The key part of these “commissions” is that they are not elected and have authority to over ride local boards that are elected. It is agenda 21 being implemented step by step, the incremental erosion of freedom and liberty. No it is not a conspiracy theory, it has been spelled out in many documents. They are taking advantage of the ignorance and apathy of their democrat base.
The single biggest culprit in the housing and finance market collapse of 2008? HUD. Now they want to pull this crap? Abolish it. Shut it down. Completely.
Their neighbor has a bigger house, so they want to force them to tear it down.
Coming soon: If you like your town, you can keep your town!
It seems the perfect answer to San Francisci regional planning is to move out of Califirnia. And the answer to the dederal regulatiry strings is to fir cities and towns to tell tge feds to keep their money and their regulations. For towns smart enoygh to do this the section 8 housing criminals will voluntarily relocate to a liberal democrat town that does take the money.
The enemy within, the Manchurian Candidate, etc. etc. etc. — we called it early on: this freak is hell-bent on destroying our way of life.
And the GOP is there to help him.
Our only way out:
http://www.teaparty.org/
Beware overlapping and convergent interests.
That said, it is only legitimate to judge a class/group on principles or uniform behavior. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater unless it is justified. That’s what they want you to do: elective/voluntary abortion… of your children, representatives, etc. What a brilliant strategy.
The results will be terrible, as efforts to force people out of their cars will cause ever more massive traffic problems in the absence of any viable (or rationally needed) alternative to the automobile, but the left-wing ideologues who have near total control of the nation’s information industries will have no trouble getting low information voters to agree that the problem is too many cars.
That’s how we got here in the first place, with the global warming alarmists convincing low information voters that we should be switching to non-existent alternative energy sources, and the same process is still rolling along at full speed. It won’t matter how thoroughly destructive the policies are. All that matters is whether the Democrats are still able to successfully shift blame.
HUD is one of the federal departments which should be at the top of list for closing. Not only does it lack any constitutional function whatever, its record is one of doing more harm than good and being one of the worst for corruption and waste.
The only reasons it exists are for employment for more useless Democratic bureaucrats, steering contracts to cronies, and to provide apparent benefit to constituencies (apparent because, as noted before, it creates more problems than it solves).
Global Warming …
… there’s nothing it can’t do!
They don’t respect individual dignity. They reject intrinsic (i.e. unearned) value. As a matter of principles, the good perceptions they cultivate always have ulterior motives.
That said, I wonder why they didn’t start in their own neighborhoods. Perhaps in their beachfront properties. With $14 trillion in debt, a multi-trillion dollar welfare economy, and around 1 million aborted Americans annually, they cannot explain why any American is indigent, homeless, and even unidentified.
This happened to our neighborhood, as section of townhomes in Montgomery Village, Maryland. Townhouse next door to us went section 8 and rented out to a ghetto mom.
First there was the trashiness. Basic maintenance wasn’t looked after (wood rot is a constant battle up here). Then there were issues with them leaving trash out for pickup in cheap bags that were destroyed by animals and littered all over the parking lot. Then her “boyfriends” starting showing up with their rapper attitude – getting in to fights over parking places. Load rap music bass bouncing the shared walls well past 2am. Good luck trying to get to any sleep before work the next day. Polite requests to turn the bass down were met with threats of violence. If something wasn’t nailed down it got lifted. Even my lawnmower got stolen. Police cars with flashing lights became a routine weekend drama.
Then came the graffiti, over everything. Made the neighborhood look like a wreck.
Well-mannered parents (of all races) began short-selling their homes just to get away. There kids couldn’t play outside without getting bullied and beat up by her 4 kids.
In the space of a year the entire neighborhood went to shit. All because of ONE section 8 resident. We should have gotten out with the others, but we got stuck here by the housing bubble burst. There are no buyers.
The denizens of benefits and Section 8 usually bring the ghetto with them wherever they go – and – they are resistant to more peaceful civil lifestyles and social values. You can change their addresses, but you can’t change their hearts and minds.
Fen, Obama’s gonna get you for describing what he and Michelle did to your neighborhood!
Snark Snark
It’s going to get worse, America.
This is what happens when you elect a community organizer for President.
Brace yourselves. It’s gonna be a real bumpy ride.
I always thought Obama was saying “Communist Organizer.”
McCarthy was right!
The urban left still blame suburbanites for abandoning the cities in the years after WWII. Wanting better schools and more open space in which to raise one’s children is so racists, don’t you know.
Heck, all the middle-class minorities left also , blacks, Jewish, Asian, etc., etc.
“The Global Poverty Act of 2007 was a clue to the ultimate scope of the Obama redistribution agenda: from individual to regional and across the globe.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/08/obamas_three-tiered_wealth_redistribution_plan_individual_regional_and_global.html
“Dreams from My Father describes Davis’s efforts to pass this stance on to Obama. At Occidental, with Davis’s advice in mind, Obama worried that he was too much like “suburban blacks, students who sit with whites in the cafeteria and refuse to be defined by the color of their skin.” This fear of becoming a middle-class suburban “sellout” is the background to the famous passage of Dreams where Obama explains why he started hanging out with “Marxist professors” and other unconventional types. Recalling Davis’s admonition to reject the standard path to success, “the American way and all that shit,” Obama left Occidental’s suburban campus for Columbia University, “in the heart of a true city.””
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/08/13/how-obama-is-robbing-the-suburbs-to-pay-for-the-cities/
There was a book written by someone on the West Coast not long ago. The book talks about redefining the suburbs through wealth redistribution, something about the suburbs paying for the cities. Someone reading this blog will know what I am talking about. Please post the title in the comments.
DON’T FORGET: Today is Flag Day!!
Hey Jennifer, the book you refer to was written by Kurtz (quoted throughout this post) and is called “Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities.” 🙂
Thanks Fuzzy for getting back to me.
I do believe that there is another book, written by a West Coast liberal, that came to my notice the last few years. I am still trying to recall the name of the author and the title.
If I remember I will post it here.
Thanks again.
Bet the little exclusive private school educated twerp won’t ‘diversify’ his own neighborhoods or those of his rich cronies.
And yet these are the same people who scream bloody murder when a wealthy developer buys up run-down properties in order to build condos and shopping malls.
Or when Yuppies move into a neighborhood in a “regentrification” trend. They (or we) voluntarily move into an area of diverse demographics, with no expectation or demand that others leave. Some of them WILL, as property values make selling very attractive, and increased property taxes make staying hard-to-impossible for fixed income people or low-earners.
The racial mix is of no consequence to the people moving in. It couldn’t be a more “small D” democratic trend, as “yuppies” are a mixed bag. But it is simply true that a lot of lower-income people are pushed out…many of them by their own choice to take their appreciation in their homes and, themselves, move out into the ‘burbs.
Out in the rural areas, like mine, we don’t care who moves in as our neighbors. We have million-dollar “horsey people” homes next door to trailers, and all races. And the consensus out here is “They’ll get my vehicles when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers”…figuratively.
“They’ll get my vehicles when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers”…figuratively.
I’m thinking more literally, than figuratively.
But, I live on the edge of a cornfield, in the middle of nowhere, so I’m thinking it won’t affect me. In my remaining lifetime, anyway.
I meant that I don’t hold my vehicles in my hands, literally.
My firearms, yes…
The left as usual gets it wrong. Poverty is not generally a problem of not having nice things. That is merely the surface result. Poverty is a problem of character and intelligence. That is, ghettos are what they are because they’re full of people with low character and intelligence. Giving them a nice house and grocery store will not elevate them. As we have seen with public housing projects, those people will simply destroy what you give them with no thought as to what was paid to give it to them, or any sense of gratitude for it.
I am not progressive enough to understand why they think that large urban areas are “sustainable”. Any more, the big cities build little of value. Food and energy must be imported from the rest of the country. Etc. This time of year, I live somewhere that has its own power generation, as well as food production. In the case of WW III, an asteroid strike, etc, the last place you want to be is in a big dense city – if starvation doesn’t take you, it will likely be disease or violence that does you in.
This is being implemented in a variety of under-the-radar ways. Read through this survey, that ended yesterday, and was linked to via an email from a local theater who is on the list for funding. Fascinating! Most “appear” to be in downtown areas which sounds all good and such but notice all the “housing” endeavors and where there is not housing development, there are paths and connectors of some some sort from the burbs to the core of a town/city. Many are for “the arts professionals, the creative young, etc.,; all code words for liberal devoted followers of left-wing democrat. Subsidized housing for the activists who will have affordable housing and access to direct routes to those that need to be “activated against” in the suburbs. Noone pushing for these developments really expect them to work; just another money laundering scheme and all these areas will be worse off than they are now. https://itisafinelinealice.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/northeast-indiana-regional-cities-phase-1-projects/