Are "Diversity Maps" a Precursor to Forced Neighborhood Integration?

Are the "diversity" police coming to your neighborhood? As Fox News reports:

  
In a move some claim is tantamount to social engineering, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is imposing a new rule that would allow the feds to track diversity in America’s neighborhoods and then push policies to change those it deems discriminatory. The policy is called, "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing." It will require HUD to gather data on segregation and discrimination in every single neighborhood and try to remedy it.

"Data from this discrimination database would be used with zoning laws, housing finance policy, infrastructure planning and transportation to alleviate alleged discrimination and segregation," Fox reports.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger describes the new federal policy as a means to create "diversity maps." It likens the policy to NJ's long-standing "affordable" housing policies" derived from its Mount Laurel State Supreme Court ruling countering local zoning ordinances that restrict low-income housing development, and the Council on Affordable Housing that resulted from that decision.


I left these comments at the Star-Ledger:

The idea of "diversity maps" is itself blatantly racist, and will only further entrench the tribal premise that individuals are nothing more that subordinates to the group. Any government that demeans individuals in this collectivist fashion is heading down the path to totalitarianism.

The right path is individual rights. The Mount Laurel decision did not address the fundamental problem—zoning itself. If the NJ Supreme Court had swept aside the power of zoning boards to violate the rights of property owners, home builders, and consumers by dictating what can be built where, that would have greatly alleviated the housing crunch. If Jacob’s Chapel had not had to get permission from the Mount Laurel Zoning Board to build an apartment building on its property in 1970, we never would have heard of a "Mount Laurel Decision" or Council on Affordable Housing.

Likewise, no one would be "locked out of the best schools" by being stuck in a bad school district if it weren't for the government school monopoly. An education free market—or, at the very least, universal school choice through tax credits—would enable entrepreneurs to bring good schools to any area where demand for good schools is strong. And in a free market, there would be plenty of demand from parents seeking a good education for their children. The demand already exists, as witness the long waiting lines for charter school openings. No need to move. No more would children be locked into bad schools based on their parents' address.

Bigotry gains power only when sanctioned by government, whether overtly or covertly. Rather than hand government even more power to dictate our associations through collectivistic bean counting, we need more freedom and less government intrusion. Then, people would be able to bypass the ignorant, because bigotry is irrelevant and has no power in a free society.

This new scheme is a terrible idea, and fundamentally un-American.
Related Reading:

NJ's "Affordable Housing Crisis"—It's the Zoning, Stupid

Title 2: Government vs. Private Action

Title 2: A Lesson on Activism–From the Left

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