The Democratic party's redlining policies during the New Deal, which championed deep federal government intervention in the housing finance and insurance markets, were deeply flawed: racist in impact, anti-free market, and the progenitor of a bundle of negative, unintended consequences. But to suggest, as local housing advocates and academics recently have*, that those flawed FDR policies are the root of current segregation (or, more accurately, lack of integration) in American cities, is just ahistorical misinformation. Liberal historian Carl H. Nightingale in his epic work Segregation: A Global HIstory of Divided Cities provides a useful context.

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In a recent SJ Housing Dept community meeting, an advocate bemoaned the fact that "private property" concerns were getting in the way of a more "equitable" housing market. A quick look at National Low Income Housing Coalition's Advocates Guide explains the context for the comment, and gives an idea of how housing advocates are working towards a wildly expanded role for local government in owning and distributing housing, all under the banner of "housing as human right."

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Changes in market forces are doing what billions spent on gov't-subsidized "affordable" housing can't: making it easier for residents of all income levels to buy homes in Santa Clara County. Louis Hansen at the Merc parses the most recent data from real estate analytics firm Attom.

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County and local schools have recently rolled out extremist critical race theory-inspired history courses in local schools while ignoring or refusing to give voice to community input. As Wilfred McClay explains in City Journal, opposition to these ahistoric and divisive narratives is vital for a functioning democracy.

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In their unimpressive defense of the city-funded imagery that promotes violence against law enforcement, local progressives have claimed that the role of art is to be "transgressive." Who--besides fraudulent artist--thinks so? Roger Kimball offers perspective in The Spectator.

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Unnecessary pandemic school closure, driven by local teachers' unions, disproportionately harmed children of color in lower-income schools, says a new report from McKinsey and Co. The Wall Street Journal laments.]

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The suspension of light rail service in the county has prompted many transit watchers to wonder: maybe this is an opportunity to move past throwing more and more money at the worst-performing element of the worst-performing transit agency in the country. Marc Joffe at the Reason Foundation sees innovative solutions available to solve VTA's woes, if we have the courage to pursue them, in an SJ Merc op-ed.

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Ever have this feeling? You are scrolling through the web, reading about political developments in your home town, and being taken aback by how obviously partisan the news stories are. How they're framed from the headline on down in a transparently political matter. How the language is loaded to prompt outrage. How only one side gets to comment. Your reaction is accurate: in the past decade the news media has abandoned all pretense of objectivity and fairness due to fundamental changes in their business models. Leighton Woodhouse explains in The Algorithm.

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At a recent meeting to discuss the city’s rules for locating affordable housing projects, staffers from the SJ Housing Department and local progressive non profits voiced a series of inaccurate, ahistorical, and misleading comments about the racial nature of San Jose’s residential landscape. Central to their narrative was the false assumption that SJ's current racial residential patterns derive exclusively from past government policies, and that neighborhoods that are predominantly one ethnic or racial group are, by extension, “segregated.” The meeting was covered by San Jose Spotlight here. Online commenters on Spotlight corrected many of the misconceptions promulgated by speakers at the event. A collation of misstatements and clarifications follows.

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You wouldn't know it from the race-baiting misinformation coming out of the SJ Housing department and local progressive non profits, but the data is clear: San Jose is more racially diverse than every other large (600,000+ population) city in California. The conclusion comes from a collation of updated 2020 data from the Census, FBI, OpenStreetMaps, among other sources, by Chris Kolmar of the urban ranking website, Homesnacks.

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Over the course of the past 70 years, California cities have grown outward to create multiple new urban centers across a metropolitan landscape. Modern planners in Silicon Valley, however, can’t control this model of growth, so they have limited growth across the board, causing housing prices to skyrocket. These policies negatively impact lower-income residents—in both urban and suburban areas—the most. Joel Kotkin examines the debris in City Journal.

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