For Black History Month, Vox is publishing a big series on rethinking policy for Black America.

I wrote 3,200 words on eradicating exclusionary zoning.

It's a 3 step formula: Persuade, incentivize, and if all else fails, SUE THE SUBURBS.

Thread

We know that exclusionary zoning is locking millions out of opportunity.

Work by @OppInsights, Richard Rothstein, Ta-Nehisi Coates, @nhannahjones, @RickKahlenberg, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Enrico Moretti and @ProfSchleich details the economic impact of these discriminatory policies.
51 years after the Fair Housing Act, it's never been seriously enforced. It's time to change that.

First things first, Biden has work to do to convince whoever can be convinced that there is a racial, environmental, and economic imperative to undo residential segregation.
Use whatever explanation works!

For sympathetic progressives Biden should link racial and environmental justice to ending exclusionary zoning.

For everyone else, he can simply make an economic argument.
https://t.co/wHB6roD8nD
Second, there are many tools to incentivize localities that rely on federal dollars to reform their zoning codes.

There is a ton of federal money that can be conditioned on reforming exclusionary zoning laws. @ebwhamilton has some good ideas on this front.
But not everyone can be incentivized. As @jenny_schuetz' research indicates, the most exclusionary places don't rely on popular existing HUD grants.

https://t.co/MLr9t7NN81
As Sara Pratt, an Obama-era HUD official told me: “There’s a group who ... embrace segregation and inequity, and they don’t want to spend a dime in the Black community and they would rather have their Latino population move out of town..." https://t.co/wHB6roD8nD
"...For those people, that’s where enforcement becomes relevant — and good, strong enforcement.”

It's time to sue the suburbs.

For what that could look like, check out the full piece below! https://t.co/wHB6roD8nD
Huge thanks to @baggageclaimed for asking me to write on my favorite topic & editing, @christinamta for the A+ visuals work, and @TanyaPai and Tim Williams, the phenomenal copy editors who have prevented me from making errors more times than I can count. https://t.co/wHB6roD8nD
And my colleagues @FabiolaCineas, @annanorthtweets, and @liszhou who contributed amazing pieces to the collection.

More to come...

https://t.co/4vSgnwAp8X

More from Society

This is a piece I've been thinking about for a long time. One of the most dominant policy ideas in Washington is that policy should, always and everywhere, move parents into paid labor. But what if that's wrong?

My reporting here convinced me that there's no large effect in either direction on labor force participation from child allowances. Canada has a bigger one than either Romney or Biden are considering, and more labor force participation among women.

But what if that wasn't true?

Forcing parents into low-wage, often exploitative, jobs by threatening them and their children with poverty may be counted as a success by some policymakers, but it’s a sign of a society that doesn’t value the most essential forms of labor.

The problem is in the very language we use. If I left my job as a New York Times columnist to care for my 2-year-old son, I’d be described as leaving the labor force. But as much as I adore him, there is no doubt I’d be working harder. I wouldn't have stopped working!

I tried to render conservative objections here fairly. I appreciate that @swinshi talked with me, and I'm sorry I couldn't include everything he said. I'll say I believe I used his strongest arguments, not more speculative ones, in the piece.

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