Maryland legislator wants to push low-income housing into posh suburban DC neighborhoods
by
Luke Rosiak, DCNF
- Maryland state legislator Vaughn Stewart wants to add high-density, low-income housing to affluent suburban neighborhoods.
- A tool would use data to find areas where children grow up to earn high incomes and allow high-density housing in an attempt to bring impoverished people to those neighborhoods.
- It is part of a social engineering push grounded in the allegation that suburbs are racially segregated but that the act of residing in such neighborhoods will help anyone who lives there to become successful.
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.