Diversity goes up, not down!
They just won’t believe it.

          She announces “profound changes” in the city. Her job is to get contracts for affordable housing. So without blinking and eye, she turns the new study on rent control’s end into a mandate for yet more affordable housing. She is Susan Schlesinger, Cambridge’s head of “community development.”
          How does Susan twist the study? In a summarizing memorandum (the only thing almost anybody is going to read), she reports just the rent increases — but not the resulting rent burdens that turn out to be normal and affordable. She cites the turnover — but doesn’t make it clear that It’s perfectly normal. She paints a picture of “gentrifying” rather than falling tenant incomes — by not mentioning even once the rich, white, educated tenants who moved out of decontrolled units and largely out of the city. And what about racial changes for this diversity-conscious official? No comment, because they don’t fit her agenda.
          Susan needs a “housing crisis,” because that means money, money, and more money for her growing municipal empire of affordable housing projects. She wants a transfer tax. She wants federal funds. She wants state and local funds. And she can’t get any of this money without a housing crisis that needs to be “fixed.”
          So Susan sees a housing crisis everywhere. Even in a study that doesn’t really show any crisis, that shows the city’s diversity got better with decontrol. Susan would see a sousing crisis if someone opened up a can of soup.

The group-speak
          Following right in Susan’s footsteps, the Boston Globe headlined its story on the new study: “Rents go up, while diversity declines.” Not so, but okay, all they read was Susan’s summary.
          Likewise the Cambridge Chronicle. It wrote on the study: “As many expected, the demise of rent control has resulted in heavy migration.” Not so again. A state representative called on everyone to “come up with a strategy·to preserve what is left of diversity in Cambridge.”
          Yep, they gotta have a housing crisis. Even if there isn’t one.

So what? Can it be done?
          Ending rent control produced more diversity, not less. But so what? What if, as a result of decontrol, diversity had gone down. What then? Would that justify rent control? Or since rent control is no longer an option, would that justify other social measures to achieve “diversity?”
          We don’t think so. Its not a legitimate function of government to determine the “correct” social composition of a city and then engineer it through regulation. Government should stick to streets, sewers, garbage and schools. These are already challenging enough.
          Engineering a city’s social mix is a gargantuan, super-human task doomed to failure and conflict. Our nation already has a long history with affirmative action, which is under attack and deals only with minorities. Engineering a city’s social mix means far more. Besides minority status, still more categories and quotas would have to be checked by “border guards” everywhere. Categories like income level. Or family/non-family status. Or university/non-university affiliation. Just to mention a few favorites. What is the right proportion of each one? Who will set themselves up as God to judge?
          Now suppose the “correct” mix was set, how do you achieve it? Suppose the new laws to achieve it worked as well as rent control did to achieve diversity· Well, you get the picture. IT CAN’T BE DONE!

Page 1: Those who moved out were the rich whites
Page 2: Predictions of doom failed
Page 3: Facts from the study
Page 4: They just won’t believe it