Among Donald Trump’s many alleged race-related sins is his defense of “the suburbs” from low-income housing. Liberals call this a “dog whistle,” an appeal to racist suburban whites with a warning that minorities will invade their all-white neighborhoods. But the fact that Trump’s view is not racist was acknowledged in last night’s presidential debate by none other than Joe Biden, when the former vice president spoke of changes in the demographic composition of suburbia since the 1950s.
Trump has made the suburbs a campaign issue, thanks to his rollback of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act (AFFH), promulgated by the Obama administration. That rule linked federal community-development grants to zoning changes aimed at engineering greater racial integration, specifically in the form of housing for low-income families. Trump has implied that such housing would threaten suburbs, and that he is “protecting our suburbs.” In announcing his executive order, he said, “the suburb destruction will end with us.” In a speech in Midland, Texas, he elaborated: “There will be no more low-income housing forced into the suburbs . . . It’s been going on for years. I’ve seen conflict for years. It’s been hell for suburbia.”
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