"This is a repeat of regulations that the Obama administration put out,” explains attorney Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation. "These proposed regulations are basically a takeover of local zoning decisions on the basis of supposedly achieving equity and diversification."
A proposed rule change by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development showed up on the Federal Register in early February but, in reality, the plan targeting suburbia is Barack Obama 2.0 in the Biden administration.
‘Cities Without Suburbs’
Back during President Obama’s second term, National Review writer Stanley Kurtz warned readers at the time the Obama administration was targeting suburbs because far-left Democrats despise the mostly white and middle-class neighborhoods that vote Republican.
“If you press suburbanites into cities, transfer urbanites to the suburbs, and redistribute suburban tax money to cities, you have effectively abolished the suburbs,” Kurtz, who eventually wrote a book about Obama’s plan, explained at the time.
President Donald Trump is credited with rolling back the Obama-era HUD rule in 2018, when he extended a compliance deadline, much to the horror of Democrats, who insisted the HUD rule addresses fair housing and racial discrimination.
Dr. Ben Carson, who was HUD secretary under Trump, called the anti-suburb plan "social engineering."
In that NRO story, Kurtz credits left-wing scholar David Rusk for influencing the Obama administration with his book, Cities Without Suburbs. The stated plan of the book is to make the suburbs disappear by annexing them into the larger cities that overshadow them.
Sure enough, Rusk spoke at the “White House Forum on Suburbs” in 2011 according to a glowing report by the left-wing Wilson Center.
Rusk was referred to as “one of the USA’s leading regionalists” by the Wilson Center.
According to Kurtz's NRO story, that term “regionalist” is the self-described title for proponents who envision huge urban territories that soak up the tax base and eliminate municipal boundaries.
HUD wants ‘more robust community engagement’
Back in 2015, and now eight years later, the same suburb-busting plan goes by the same name: “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.”
HUD’s online document even states it “builds on the steps” initiated by the federal government in 2015.
“This rule proposes to retain much of the 2015 AFFH Rule's core planning process,” the Summary states in part, “with certain improvements such as a more robust community engagement requirement, a streamlined required analysis, greater transparency, and an increased emphasis on goal setting and measuring progress.”
The Summary goes on to state the new rule includes “mechanisms to hold program participants accountable for achieving positive fair housing outcomes…”
The public comment period ends April 10, according to The Federal Register.
According to Spakovsky, he believes most suburban-dwelling Democrats do not want to surrender what they have to a larger city nearby.
"It's the limousine liberals, who live in gated communities, that want to force this kind of thing on all the rest of it,” he insists, “including Joe Biden himself, who lives in luxurious conditions even when he's not in the White House.”
