Maryland Legislator Wants to Steer Low-Income Housing to Affluent Suburban Neighborhoods

LUKE ROSIAK
The Daily Caller
Jan. 09, 2020

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A Maryland legislator wants to identify affluent suburban neighborhoods and target them for low-income, high-density housing.

House Del. Vaughn Stewart, a Democrat, wrote Jan. 3 that he will introduce “Homes for All” legislation that would “legalize the construction of modest homes in neighborhoods close to affluent schools, reliable transit, and good jobs.”

“For too long, local governments have weaponized zoning codes to block people of color and the working class from high-opportunity neighborhoods, pushing them to the crumbling margins of cities and towns. We must act boldly to reverse decades of these exclusionary policies,” he wrote.

The bill follows other efforts throughout the country to bring high-density housing to quiet neighborhoods of single-family homes, with advocates describing suburban neighborhoods with low crime rates and top-ranked schools as racially segregated.

The text of the legislation is not yet available and Stewart did not respond to a request for comment, but CityLab said the bill would bring more people into neighborhoods identified by a private tool called the “Opportunity Atlas,” which says it identifies neighborhoods where kids who grow up there tend to become high-earning adults.

The assumption appears to be that the neighborhood made the people wealthy, though in a previous article on the tool, CityLab staff writer Tanvi Misra said it could actually be factors specific to the people who happen to live there, such as “that the kids who grow up there are very likely to have a father figure.” Misra was writing about Springwells Village, a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Detroit.

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