Westchester County in New York just settled a lawsuit charging it with not building enough subsidized housing for minorities.\u00a0 Announcing the settlement, HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims observed that studies show that zip codes can predict life expectancy and illness, according to the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to remove zip codes as a factor in the quality of life in America, he said.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In other words, it\u2019s the geographical plots themselves, not the behavior of the people living in them, that affect life expectancy and illness.\u00a0 This is a new twist on the \u201cmorality by osmosis” theory that underlies the Section 8 housing voucher program.\u00a0 Section 8 holds that by catapulting people who have embraced an underclass lifestyle into close proximity to people with bourgeois habits, you can magically endow those voucher recipients with the same capacity to defer gratification and exercise personal responsibility that allowed the unsubsidized homeowners to move up the housing ladder by their own efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Of course, Westchester County has no real grounds for complaint, having accepted Community Development Block Grant money, a prime federal boondoggle, in the first place.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Westchester County in New York just settled a lawsuit charging it with not building enough subsidized housing for minorities.\u00a0 Announcing the settlement, HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims observed that studies show that zip codes can predict life expectancy and illness, … Continue reading