True town character isn’t about buildings
When I need explicit examples of racism related to zoning, I look back at restrictive covenants from the early 20th Century.
It’s in vintage pages of our newspapers in advertisements trying to lure home-buyers to “exclusive” neighborhoods that banned “Negroes” and “those of the Semitic race.” (Have an old home? Might be worth checking out the language in the property deed.)
Those were among Connecticut’s first planned communities. A few progressed. Too many still stand on bigoted foundations.
At least those vile ads were transparent.
This past week, a controversial state effort at zoning reform sparked a 24-hour public hearing. Twenty-four hours, and it still took an accusation from New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker to get to the point of what’s really on everyone’s mind: Is Connecticut racist?
Elicker pointed to Greenwich as an example of a Connecticut town that keeps “out communities of color” through discriminatory housing policies.
His comments drew fire from Greenwich Republicans, notably state Representatives Harry Arora and Kimberly Fiorello, who released statements demanding he apologize.
He didn’t, throwing his own city under the bus as well.
“I will not apologize,” Elicker tweeted Thursday. “We live in one of the most segregated states in the nation. There is a history of explicit racism in all towns in our state — Greenwich and New Haven included. Today structural racism persists throughout our state.”
And thus was born the Greenwich-New Haven feud.
This is one of those cases where everyone is a little wrong. I often defend Greenwich as being far more diverse than its reputation. But that reputation for exclusivity is global. Fiorello’s zeal to defend her town during the hearing made it an even bigger target. In Greenwich’s defense, it has done far more than many peer communities to advance affordable housing.
But let’s own up that this is truly a Black and white issue. Greenwich’s Black population is 3.7 percent. Greenwich has a healthier Latino population of 13.8 percent, but most live on the western side of town, bordering Port Chester, New York. Many residents seem to remember that whenever someone suggests school redistricting.
Elicker has seen the view from the inside of an exclusive bubble, having grown up in New Canaan. That town’s population is 1.6 percent Black.
There’s no ignoring that the loudest outcry over zoning reform has been from Republicans in the whitest ’burbs, starting during the last election cycle from the likes of Fiorello, New Canaan’s Tom O’Dea and Terrie Wood in Darien (0.9 percent Black population), along with Patrizia Zucaro, who lost in Westport (1.1 percent).
While many Gold Coast Democrats treat zoning as a political third rail, Republicans seem emboldened to present the character of their towns like some kind of crest.
I see the point Greenwich Representative Town Meeting Finance Committee Chair Michael Basham makes in his op-ed about the “false narrative” over the town’s diversity, but he loses me when he conjures the horrors of multi-family units on Putnam Avenue. There are already apartments along Putnam Avenue. It’s Route 1. What’s the problem? Would they jeopardize the view of Miller Motorcars’ squadron of Aston Martins?
Greenwich’s-Leora R. Levy, the Republican National Committee chair for Connecticut, offered the argument that the matter of local control was settled back in 1662, when King Charles II granted it to his subjects in the Connecticut Charter.
While I’m distracted by Pythonesque fantasies of continuing to follow King Chuck the Deuce’s mandates, there’s also the matter that the General Assembly was the only body with any authority back then. So they had local control.
By the way, they still do.
Twenty-four hours of droning testimony will probably be more effective than storming the castle in convincing lawmakers to surrender.
But all this talk can surface truths. In reaching out to constituents, Arora wrote that “this will have a negative impact on property prices in many pockets of our real estate market. It can create more stress on school systems and further increase property taxes. What is more puzzling is that it would not create any affordable housing but exert downward pressure on real estate prices — the most important asset of many in our community.”
Yes, it puts stress on school systems, stress that’s cavalierly shoved off to Connecticut’s cities.
Similarly, Fiorello, whose district includes Stamford, wrote in an op-ed that “During the last 30 years, Connecticut housing prices have increased at the slowest pace in the country.”
A more diverse community can indeed drive down the price of homes — but that only happens when we fail to be inclusive as human beings. Opponents keep raising the issue of how local “character” will be compromised. How about framing an even better character?
At the risk of feuding with everyone, isn’t this a fight worth having? Even if nothing happens under the Gold Dome, it might inspire richer discussions about creating small homes for the people who clean the biggest ones.
Akin to those ads of a century ago, at least some opponents are being forthright. Arora calls the bills an “attempt to urbanize” Connecticut towns.
Put aside the lack of Black faces on local main streets and in classrooms. Let’s pause and apply author Ursula Le Guin’s dystopian nightmare of a state where everyone is the same color. We’d still be left with classism.
When someone in the 22nd Century looks back at Connecticut history, they should see this as the time we finally did better. A time our towns showed true character.