Soccer moms might turn on Biden if they learn he’s attacking their homes By Andrea Widburg
Stanley Kurtz noted that part of Biden’s alleged “infrastructure” bill continues the left’s war on the suburbs. Even though affluent suburbs are increasingly filled with Democrat voters (college grads who passed through the propaganda mill), the administration wants to make them more densely urban because that ensures reliable Dem voting. However, if Republicans can get the word out about this feature in the bill, they might get an unexpected ally: Soccer moms.
First, let me share some of Kurtz’s analysis with you, although I urge you to read the whole thing:
How, exactly, does Biden plan to end single-family zoning? According to the fact sheet released by the White House, “Biden is calling on Congress to enact an innovative new competitive grant program that awards flexible and attractive funding to jurisdictions that take concrete steps to eliminate [‘exclusionary zoning’].” In other words, Biden wants to use a big pot of federal grant money as bait. If a county or municipality agrees to weaken or eliminate its single-family zoning, it gets the federal bucks.
The wildly overreaching Obama-Biden era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation — which Biden has pledged to revive — works in a similar fashion. The difference is that by adding another gigantic pot of federal money to the Community Development Block Grants that are the lure of AFFH, Biden makes it that much harder for suburbs to resist applying — and that much more punishing to jurisdictions that forgo a share of the federal taxes they’ve already paid so as to protect their right to self-rule.
The practical effect of ending single-family zoning means that you just bought a lovely 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home for your growing family, on a quiet street with large lots, each boasting a big garden. It’s the perfect place to play. However, when your neighbors move out, a developer buys his property, razes it, and builds a Section H multifamily unit on it. When this happens a few more times, you just overpaid for a large home on a busy street, complete with Section H housing – and the drugs and crime that inevitably follow when Section H comes to your neighborhood.
What Biden’s handlers might not realize is that suburban moms, the ones who worked hard and delayed childbearing so that they could raise their children in a safe, healthy environment, don’t like plans to turn their green retreats into copies of the same busy cities they left. And it’s not just Republican suburban moms who don’t like this idea; it’s Democrat suburban moms too.
I raised my children in a lovely suburban enclave. All my neighbors, and all the people that I met through schools, were couples who had met as young urban professionals working in cities. They got married, had children, and discovered that the city was a mixed blessing as a parent.
Sure, the city offered wonderful cultural opportunities, but kids under five aren’t fans of ballet, fine art, and opera, and you can’t take them to woke, edgy shows. What you really want to do with the young set is take them to a safe park and let them run. And when they’re older, you want them to bike or walk to their nice, clean, new schools that have big playgrounds and good academic ratings.
My particular city was already bad when my older child was born. Small apartments were expensive, traffic was awful, parking was minimal, public transportation was dirty and unreliable, and public schools were appalling. By moving just 15 miles away from the city, we got a large house with a big garden, no traffic, easy access by car to every amenity from groceries to pediatricians, and top-rated public schools. The last were still lousy because of the state curriculum, but that’s another story.
Since then, all those urban woes have gotten worse. Even before COVID, homelessness had turned my old city into a filthy dystopian nightmare.
When the Democrats’ plan to urbanize came to my suburb a decade ago, Democrat moms – all of whom had followed the same trajectory as I did – were up in arms. Having slaved and saved to move into the suburbs, they became instant NIMBYs. Compassion for the poor, downtrodden, and differently colored did not extend to multifamily homes in their neighborhoods. Nor were they in favor of a massive decline in property value after spending a fortune on their homes.
Conservatives must get the word out about what the AFFH plan means – and that taking any money from HUD means that the federal government owns their neighborhoods forever. If they can be brought to understand this fact, they will object – loudly and with passion.
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