Obama wants to gerrymander housing policies to influence poor people to move into more affluent areas.
No doubt some of this stems from his spread the wealth/you didn’t build that mindset. That much is obvious.
Less obvious is that this policy is essentially an admission of progressive failure.
Take Maryland as an example. Obama’s policy would suggest that inner city Baltimore residents move to affordable housing in affluent Columbia, Maryland located a few miles from BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Airport). Inner city Baltimore, which was in flames just weeks ago. Columbia which is so very affluent even the gas stations feature professional gardening out front to conceal the fact that there are in fact gas stations in Columbia, MD.
If Baltimore is merely outsourcing it’s poverty that means the problem of that poverty remains unaddressed. Inner city Baltimore remains a disaffected cesspool absent opportunities for it’s citizens. Those that didn’t move to Columbia, MD or elsewhere would still be suffering in Baltimore’s slums. Those that did move are still poor even if their neighbors aren’t.
The problem of urban poverty, then, is at root. Who has run America’s urban enclaves virtually unchallenged since the 1960’s? Democrat/progressives. Who going back to the FDR-era has campaigned on a Santa Claus platform promising everything to every victimized group they could create? Progressive/Democrats. Decades of opportunities to fix urban poverty.
And now their best answer is simply to outsource poverty, hoping that by doing so the problem will dissolve and vanish once diffused from the confines of urban zip codes?
It would be funny if it weren’t so slipshod and sad. Our history is replete with policy examples that serve to lift Americans up out of poverty. Not a one of them calls for outsourcing it from inner cities to the burbs.
Image: http://www.geripal.org/2009/11/hospice-upheaval.html
