The Dangerous Rise of ‘Front-Yard Politics’
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Several months ago, while walking through my neighborhood in Washington, D.C., I noticed an impressive number of front-lawn placards celebrating and welcoming refugees. The signs made me proud. I like living in a place where people openly celebrate tolerance and diversity.
Several days later, my pride curdled into bitterness. As part of some reporting on housing policy, I found a State Department page offering advice to Afghans and Iraqis resettling in the U.S. The upshot: Stay away from D.C. “The Washington, D.C., metro area including northern Virginia and some cities in California are very expensive places to live, and it can be difficult to find reasonable housing,” the website warns. “Any resettlement benefits you receive may not comfortably cover the cost of living in these areas.”
My city’s prohibitive housing costs flow, in part, from the district’s infamous war against new construction. Much of D.C. is for new development, thanks to widespread single-family zoning, berserk historical-preservation rules, and a long-standing aversion to taller buildings, which stems from both and local rules. If the city’s housing policies are so broken that the federal government has to tell immigrants to find somewhere else to live, then signage welcoming refugees is both futile and hypocritical. The saying yes to refugees in their front yard
