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To ensure that "every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of," HUD [Housing and Urban Development] has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in.
The goal is to help communities understand "fair housing barriers" and "establish clear goals" for "improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation."
“This proposed rule represents a 21st century approach to fair housing, a step forward to ensuring that every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of – where they have a fair shot at reaching their full potential in life,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.
“For the first time ever," Donovan added, "HUD will provide data for every neighborhood in the country, detailing the access African American, Latino, Asian, and other communities have to local assets, including schools, jobs, transportation, and other important neighborhood resources that can play a role in helping people move into the middle class."
According to HUD, long-term solutions include "helping people gain access to different neighborhoods and channeling investments into under-served areas." The mapping tool may guide development and zoning decisions, for example.
In a July 16 speech to the NAACP, Donovan said the American Dream still isn't within equal reach of all communities. He lamented the lack of diversity in America's boardrooms, schools, and the nation's "strongest neighborhoods."
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The American Dream doesn't exist in big government and bureaucratically bloated cities and communities because it doesn't have an opportunity to exist. This regulation will make it worse. The only thing that public housing has done for poor urban communities in the past 50 years is keep them poor. There's nothing "fair" about it. Bringing new ideas and the free market into communities and neighborhood improves them, not central HUD planning and government funding from Washington.
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