Richest county in America blasted for housing discrimination

Goochland County, Virginia, is the wealthiest county in America. This conservative, exurban bailiwick near Richmond has the nation's highest average income, based on recent tax data. Its average income is 13 times that of hurricane-ravaged St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, the nation's poorest county.

Why is Goochland County becoming so much richer? Not only does it have some extremely opulent residents that skew the average upward. According to some locals, you're also required to be rich just to move in.

Goochland County reportedly does not allow new houses that cost less than $500,000. (Ooh, an Allowed Cloud!) Nor does it permit any new apartments. Probably the only poor people who live in the county are live-in maids, or the families of folks who lived there when it was a much poorer, more rural area. Even the latter group is being priced out of the county.

Why does the county have these restrictions? If the reports that the county has these regulations are true, it's because of official hostility to poor people. It's that simple. In all cases, when a city or county has a rule like this, that's the reason.

Under these rules (if the reports that the rules exist are correct), the poor are generally no longer allowed to live in Goochland County.

For the record, rules like this are illegal - but nobody ever does anything about it. Regulations that require a minimum home value are illegal largely because they discriminate based on economic status. Cities and counties are required to ensure that the poor may live within the community.

Goochland County isn't the only offender. Several years ago, a county near Atlanta wouldn't let Habitat for Humanity build housing, because the county had classist regulations mandating a minimum house size. And you'd be shocked at how many working-class cities all over America are run by right-wing regimes that try to drive out the very residents they're supposed to represent. It happens even in my town, as the city actively pays building owners to convert apartment buildings into single-family houses.

And it's just as illegal.

I was even priced out of my original hometown by that city's unlawful favoring of developments for the rich. The city failed to require new housing to be affordable.

Unfortunately, the federal government in the past 25 years has not been serious - at all - about pursuing complaints of classism in housing.

The classist disaster unfolding in Goochland County might be different though. The county has its defenders, to be sure. But more than one person has stated that the county does indeed have regulations specifying a minimum $500,000 house value.

And folks are furious.

Goochland County being named as the richest in America was attention that wasn't exactly helpful. Several observers have blasted the county's exclusivity - and have even threatened lawsuits over the home value rules.

Federal laws need to be strengthened and clarified regarding counties and cities that practice economic-based housing discrimination. The laws have to have teeth, and the injustice has to be remedied at all costs.

(Source: http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/GOOC11_20090410-222045/253988)