Word: arlington
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...middle-class Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Ill., like many middle-class suburbs of many turbulent U.S. cities, has a zoning law that forbids apartment buildings or any other form of multifamily housing in many parts of the village. Not entirely coincidentally, the 1970 census showed that the town contained 64,857 whites and 27 blacks...
...developer, to build 20 two-story buildings with 190 apartments for low-and moderate-income families on 15 acres of its property. The village board blocked the deal by refusing to rezone the site for multifamily residences. The M.H.D.C. and three blacks eligible to live in the project sued Arlington Heights on the grounds, among others, that the refusal to rezone was unconstitutional racial discrimination...
Surprisingly, Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, the dissenters in Washington v. Davis, did not quarrel with Justice Powell's interpretation of the Constitution in the Arlington Heights case. They dissented solely on the ground that it should be returned to the lower court to apply that interpretation. Observes Georgetown Law Professor Jerome Shuman: "The new decision continues the shift from judging the effects of discrimination to assessing the intent of the zoning laws, and intent is far more difficult to prove." Adds the director of a fair-housing organization: "The decision raises the standards of proof much higher...
...battle is by no means over, however. In a number of areas-New Jersey, for example-similar suits have been filed in state courts charging that restrictive zoning rules violate provisions of state constitutions. Nor did the Supreme Court let Arlington Heights -and other white middle-class enclaves -off the hook altogether. The Justices sent the case back to the court of appeals to consider another claim: that the refusal to rezone violated the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968. For some reason the court of appeals had ignored this charge, and that, said Justice Powell sternly, was "somewhat unorthodox...
Meanwhile, the black population of Arlington Heights has increased...