Will HUD Decide Who Should Live in Your Neighborhood?
HUD now wants to determine who lives in what neighborhoods based upon racial and economic factors. HUD - the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - typically promotes what they consider fair or equal access to housing.
On the other hand, my instinct tells me that such neighborhoods as they live in will not be targeted. Rather the middle class neighborhoods where people work hard and try to live in peace and security will be the the main targets here. As for poor neighborhoods, what's HUD going to do, pay rich people to live there to balance things out?
All this government nose-poking will only lead to attempts to force people who don't necessarily want to live together to now live together. Of course, they don't say that. For example, a senior official of the NAACP notes:
As for economic circumstances, how will moving poor people into middle class neighborhoods benefit anyone? Will the poor be subsidized by the government? And when the middle class residents realize that they are supporting their neighbors - involuntarily through taxation - so their neighbors can enjoy the same neighborhood that they worked hard to get into, as is the case in many NYC working/middle-class neighborhoods, do you think there may perhaps be some resentment on the part of those who sacrificed to "move up" in the world?
This latest HUD proposal simply doesn't sound like a good idea to me. And I haven't even gotten into whether it is in any way appropriate for the government to determine how and where people live. Nor have I discussed the idea that government is in any way competent to make such assessments and enforce their questionable "insights" on others via programs using taxpayer money. I'm just commenting on this from the point of view of common sense. You do see the point here, don't you?
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The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new plan to change U.S. neighborhoods it says are racially imbalanced or are too tilted toward rich or poor, arguing the country's housing policies have not been effective at creating the kind of integrated communities the agency had hoped for.I hope some of my liberal friends who have a few bucks, and live in neighborhoods that reflect that fact, read this article and absorb what's in store for them if HUD gets their way. Since most of them are convinced we need big government to achieve social justice, I'd like to know what they think of government efforts to bring "just" or "fair" housing conditions to American neighborhoods.
On the other hand, my instinct tells me that such neighborhoods as they live in will not be targeted. Rather the middle class neighborhoods where people work hard and try to live in peace and security will be the the main targets here. As for poor neighborhoods, what's HUD going to do, pay rich people to live there to balance things out?
All this government nose-poking will only lead to attempts to force people who don't necessarily want to live together to now live together. Of course, they don't say that. For example, a senior official of the NAACP notes:
"African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to live in segregated communities, that are predominantly lower income, have less strong public resources, less schools and educational opportunities, employment opportunities. This kind of integration (i.e., what HUD wants to do - ed) strengthens economic equality."Neighborhoods work when people choose to live there. There may be some neighborhoods that are somehow segregated along racial lines. But many neighborhoods in New York, for example, have, over time, integrated themselves without government interference. People get along just fine there, from my experience.
As for economic circumstances, how will moving poor people into middle class neighborhoods benefit anyone? Will the poor be subsidized by the government? And when the middle class residents realize that they are supporting their neighbors - involuntarily through taxation - so their neighbors can enjoy the same neighborhood that they worked hard to get into, as is the case in many NYC working/middle-class neighborhoods, do you think there may perhaps be some resentment on the part of those who sacrificed to "move up" in the world?
This latest HUD proposal simply doesn't sound like a good idea to me. And I haven't even gotten into whether it is in any way appropriate for the government to determine how and where people live. Nor have I discussed the idea that government is in any way competent to make such assessments and enforce their questionable "insights" on others via programs using taxpayer money. I'm just commenting on this from the point of view of common sense. You do see the point here, don't you?
More...
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