Thread by @CityLab

Last week, the Trump administration introduced a new fair housing rule that winds back desegregation requirements — and flouts the review process, setting up a legal challenge.

This has been in the works for months.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

These new federal regulations would weaken enforcement of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which requires communities that receive federal funds to undo their patterns of residential segregation.
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“To say that a rule that requires cities to analyze segregation would ‘destroy the suburbs’ is as close as you can get to an endorsement of racial segregation without actually saying the words," said @ShamusRoller, executive director of the @NHLP
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Almost immediately, lawmakers responded. Amendments introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would work to defund the pair of new federal regulations designed to roll back housing desegregation.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

“We cannot return to the days of redlining and white flight,” says AOC.
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In Trump’s ongoing campaign to paint racial desegregation as a bid to “abolish the suburbs,” the president is pushing a vision of suburban voters based on a dated demographic reality. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Trump ultimately is essentially making a campaign promise aimed specifically at white suburban homeowners.
The promise: His administration won’t require communities to break down the patterns of segregation that work to their advantage.
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But America’s suburbs are diversifying rapidly.
By 2010, within the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., there were more Black people living in the suburbs than inside cities. That was already the case for Latino and Asian populations. trib.al/E5QCi34

Not every suburb is changing so quickly, of course, and racially homogenous neighborhoods are another thing altogether. Trump’s new housing rule would help keep them that way. trib.al/E5QCi34