My friend Sue Konig's op ed in today's Journal News

Sue is running for County Legislator. Hit the link for the whole 16 paragraphs.

What is the most racially diverse county in New York outside of the city?

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, it's Westchester. Only Queens, Brooklyn, and The Bronx are more diverse.

Despite this fact, an "anti-discrimination" lawsuit was settled by the county, foisting new "affordable housing" on our local communities by the federal government. Decisions on where to build are not based on what local communities need, or on how to help the disadvantaged. Housing units are being rammed through because federal tax dollars are available for them, and politicians fear that if they don't spend the cash fast, it'll dry up.

The discrimination lawsuit was described by elected officials as "garbage," "Swiss cheese," and making "lemons into lemonade." Then they cut a deal.

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Developers are feeding off this settlement. At an affordable housing seminar, a developer explained the new reality: Right now, an affordable housing project in Westchester County is going to get funded. People can't get regular mortgages or refinancing. Only affordable housing is getting funded.

That same developer talked of rallying support against the NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) naysayers from community housing resource boards. The concerns and questions of the people who live in the community are not valued — they are viewed as an obstacle to be shouted down.

Comments

[maria]

Sensible, astute, excellent.

[J. Philip Faranda]

The point is not that Westchester isn't diverse.

It is segregated. And I know it.

People who decry the settlement as social engineering don't seem to want to acknowledge that the real social engineering is the local zoning laws which created the partitions to begin with.