Poverty = Pollution?

Scatter-site housing is almost as thorny a problem as busing. The antagonists are principally the same: whites protecting their hard-won privileges v. blacks trying to break out of the ghetto. In a bizarre twist of principle, a group of Chicagoans has brought suit in U.S. district court to prevent proposed housing projects from "polluting" their neighborhoods. Their legal foundation: the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

The suit, filed by 19 community organizations from Chicago's predominantly white Northwest and Southwest sides, charges that the Department of Housing and Urban Development violated the antipollution law when it approved 100 sites in those areas for public housing projects. The complaint says: "As a statistical whole, low income families ... possess social class characteristics which will and have been inimical and harmful to the legitimate interests of the plaintiffs." Among the characteristics named: "Disregard for physical and aesthetic maintenance of real and personal property, a higher propensity for criminal behavior and acts of physical violence and a lower commitment to hard work."

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