
H.R.482 - Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017 - stuarto
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/482/text
======
stuarto
House and Senate bills (H.R.482 and S.103) have been introduced to _ban
further federal funding or use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS)_ that
disseminate data on racial discrimination in housing and other community
issues.

The government created visualization site
[https://egis.hud.gov/affht/#](https://egis.hud.gov/affht/#) specifically
would be banned for further support, maintenance or use by members of the
federal government.

Fortunately the raw data is still available for download.

To me, government-ordered public-interest website teardowns sound a lot like a
21st century version of book-burning.

Bill sponsors include Marco Rubio and Mike Lee in the Senate

Geographic scientists have taken notice [http://news.aag.org/2017/01/creating-
and-preserving-actionab...](http://news.aag.org/2017/01/creating-and-
preserving-actionable-and-policy-relevant-geography/)

~~~
weberc2
> To me, government-ordered public-interest website teardowns sound a lot like
> a 21st century version of book-burning.

Fortunately that's not what this is. No longer operating a website is not the
same as ordering other such websites to be torn down. No need to overstate the
problem.

~~~
wfo
Burning a book isn't ordering all other books of its type be burned, but it
sure sends a message -- let's destroy this representation of knowledge because
it contains knowledge or thought I don't approve of. It's entirely analogous
to book-burning, though not book-banning (which is analogous to making such
data illegal -- though it's arguable that since the federal government is
really the only body capable of collecting such data, banning the federal
government from collecting it IS banning it.. an argument for another place
and time, I think) but OP didn't claim it as such, so it isn't an
overstatement.

------
jcbeard
Why would anyone want to remove public access to impartial facts? Hmm.

~~~
rayiner
France has banned collecting data on race/ethnicity since 1978. Moreover, if
you are of the mind that we are in a post-racism society (not that I subscribe
to that by the way), then this sort of data to you merely reflects peoples'
preferences and is only presented to sow disunity.

~~~
MisterBastahrd
The only people who would ever subscribe to the notion that we're in a post-
racism society are those who stand to benefit from that nonsense.

~~~
dukeluke
I disagree. I was raised being told that race doesn't matter, and I don't see
it as an issue. Continuing to acknowledge race will just amplify the natural
tendency of people to categorize people based on differences.

~~~
crooked-v
You may not see it as an issue, but the people negatively impacted by it
certainly do. Or are we pretending that events like laws suppressing voters
based on race [1] don't happen?

[1]:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/03/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/08/03/courts-
are-finally-pointing-out-the-racism-behind-voter-id-laws/)

~~~
rvdavis
Are we pretending that the source you cited is not a biased opinion piece?

~~~
crooked-v
> In North Carolina, the legislature requested racial data on the use of
> electoral mechanisms, then restricted all those disproportionately used by
> blacks, such as early voting, same-day registration and out-of-precinct
> voting. Absentee ballots, disproportionately used by white voters, were
> exempted from the voter ID requirement. The legislative record actually
> justified the elimination of one of the two days of Sunday voting because
> “counties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and
> “disproportionately Democratic.”

I welcome any other sources you might have showing that this is factually
incorrect.

------
Bedon292
"on community racial disparities"

Would this not defund access to census data? As census data shows disparities
in race?

Edit: OK, after having talked to a buddy about this, it looks like this is
address directly at HUD, and would not affect census data as that is under
commerce.

~~~
stuarto
My read is that they aren't (yet) proposing defunding the data, "just the
maps" e.g. visualizations that make it accessible. Nothing (yet) stopping a
public-interest project from hosting the same information on an open platform.

~~~
Bedon292
"design, build, maintain, utilize, or provide access to a Federal database of
geospatial information"

From my perspective that says they cannot even create the data, let alone give
anyone access to it.

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dangerlibrary
Gerrymandering, and its effects on under-represented minorities, is far harder
to illustrate and/or prove without easily accessible data of this kind.

~~~
dmarg
But it has "protection" in its title! It must be protecting us right...

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sverige
The title of this article is not the same as the original, which is "H.R.482 -
Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017" and concerns "The final rule of
the Department of Housing and Urban Development entitled 'Affirmatively
Furthering Fair Housing'".

The current title is click-bait.

~~~
chippy
From
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

"Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.
"

~~~
Bedon292
One could argue that the original title as misleading. As it does not say what
the bill actually does. In this case a plain English description of the
results seems reasonable.

~~~
sverige
Well, I don't see anything about race discrimination in the language, and it
seems to be about whether zoning should be done on a local level rather than
by the federal government.

~~~
stuarto
The language in Sec 3 is specifically "database of geospatial information on
community _racial disparities_ or disparities in access to affordable
housing". It is true that disparities may arise from either discrimination or
other sources.

