- President Donald Trump celebrated Wednesday that the federal government rescinded Obama-era fair housing rules by saying that the suburbs should not “bother” with low-income housing in their neighborhoods.
- “I am pleased to inform all people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that they will no longer be bothered or financially disadvantaged by the construction of low-income housing in their neighborhood,” Trump tweeted.
- The 2015 Affirmatively Promoting Fair Housing regulation required local governments seeking federal housing funds to collect extensive data showing a lack of housing discrimination in their communities.
- Tweets on Wednesday were among Trump’s most explicit proposals for fear and complaint from whites in his bid to win back suburban voters who have been strongly repudiating the Republican Party since he took office.
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President Donald Trump celebrated the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s reversal of an Obama-era fair housing rule by saying that Americans living in a “suburban” dream “would no longer be bothered” by having lower-income families in their neighborhoods.
Last Thursday, Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development, said he would rescind the 2015 regulation to promote fair housing. The rule required state and local communities seeking federal housing funds to collect extensive data on demographics and living conditions and, most importantly, demonstrate that they were not perpetuating racial discrimination.
“I am pleased to inform all people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that they will no longer be bothered or financially disadvantaged by the construction of low-income housing in their neighborhood,” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “Your home prices will go up according to the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!”
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020
Housing advocates have criticized the rule change, saying it would give towns much more freedom to allow discriminatory and unequal housing conditions to persist.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition, for example, said the rule change “represents a complete withdrawal from efforts to undo the historical patterns of housing discrimination and segregation in the United States” and “would allow communities ignoring the essential obligations of racial segregation of the fair housing law. “
Tweets on Wednesday were among Trump’s most explicit proposals for fear and complaint from whites in his bid to win back suburban voters who have been strongly repudiating the Republican Party since he took office.
In 2018, Democratic challengers overturned 40 seats in the House of Representatives largely by winning over college-educated suburban voters, according to data compiled by CityLab, which found that 22 of the 40 were “dense suburban” or “suburban” districts. scattered. “
Now, as polls find that former Vice President Joe Biden defeated Trump among white voters, with college and suburban studies, Trump has used fear to try to convince voters that Biden’s housing plans would make his neighborhoods were less secure and desirable.
“Suburban Housewives of America should read this article,” Trump tweeted Thursday, in a link to a New York Post opinion column criticizing Biden’s policy plans to expand affordable housing in the suburbs and set standards to prevent housing discrimination. “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American dream. I will preserve it and make it even better!”
Some commentators have said that Trump’s references to “suburban housewives” and attempts to link Biden to crime and disorder in the suburbs appear to stem from an outdated view of the suburbs as occupied almost entirely by white people. wealthy people who fear crime and are suspicious of diversity in their homes. communities
While fierce struggles against low-income housing persist in many suburban communities, today’s suburbs are much more racially and economically diverse than those of the mid-to-late twentieth century, when the “white flight” fueled many white Americans to flee urban areas in search of suburbs. .
“For most people, the idea that Biden wants to ‘destroy the suburbs’ is pointless,” wrote Paul Waldman of The Washington Post in an opinion column on July 21. “It is consistent if you believe that an increase in racial diversity will ‘destroy’ the suburbs, which means that the suburbs only exist if they are completely white.”
