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HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims Wants Your Hood

Ron Sims said that "there was a significant amount of racial segregation" in Westchester County.

HUD has brokered a landmark desegregation agreement with Westchester County, N.Y. What it requires the county to do is create affordable housing — homes and apartments — to minorities only.

Ron Sims, HUD’s deputy secretary, said his department would seek to expand funds to communities that have resisted racial diversity. “It’s important for people to have a choice,” said Sims, “and this is a new era.”

What Sims is proposing is the housing equivalent of busing. But this time instead of busing school kids, his department will be busing entire families into neighborhoods where they have historically been shut out.

In a troubling statement, Sims makes clear his department’s designs, which to me are reminiscent of Stalin’s forced urbanization, but in this case its forced suburbanization:

They [America's white communities] are now on notice. That means suburban areas, we’re going to ask that they provide the opportunity for choice so people are able to enjoy what I call the fruits and benefits of an established neighborhood. . . .It’s time to remove zip codes as a factor in the quality of life in America.

Sims said yesterday that studies showed zip codes can have an impact on life expectancy and illness. But hasn’t that always been the case? As Jimmy Carter famously said, “Life is unfair.” I applaud anything that can make this a better world, but Sims’ attempt to correct historical inequalities seethe with class envy or hatred or some kind of whether-you-like-it-or-not attitude.