Feb 11, 2008 Comments
Integrative Moves Means What, Exactly?
There’s a bit of buzz building out there in the RE.web about a new… company? nonprofit organization? called MoveSmart.org. It’s a website that is looking launch in Q3 of 2008, and I gather that they are doing fundraisers and lining up corporate sponsors and such.
From the MoveSmart.org website itself we get the following description.
Until now, information on neighborhoods has been buried in the back of academic reports, pinned to community center bulletin boards, and locked in data sets only available to planners, inaccessible to those who would benefit from it the most: housing seekers looking for a better neighborhood. MoveSmart.org will leverage the power of this information by combining these and other data sources into a single mapping engine built into a full-featured site that includes guides, tools, calculators, forums, and social networks, all designed to foster racial and economic integration.
Previous integration initiatives have proven costly and focused on families receiving public aid. Housing seekers with unlimited funds have always had the luxury of living where they choose. But for millions of families who have limited resources, finding the right neighborhood is difficult. MoveSmart.org will educate housing seekers about the benefits of integrative moves while at the same time providing suggestions on where to move, guides on how to move, and information on how to get involved in their new neighborhoods, inspiring pride in a new community and putting them on a path to true integration.
There’s a nice video there with some funky music too if you care to view/listen.
Seems to me like they’re a typical set of liberal do-gooders, and since this isn’t a political site, I won’t comment on that angle much. However, it is interesting that MoveSmart.org is “an Illinois not for profit corporation currently under the fiscal sponsorship of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc.”
This CLC would be the same CLC that sued Craigslist in 2005/2006, alleging that “since July 2005, craigslist, Inc. has published and continues to publish housing ads from the metropolitan Chicago-area that are discriminatory on the basis of race, sex, national origin, religion, color and familial status in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.” (Courtesy of Wikipedia) Of further interest is to note that the U.S. District Court flat out dismissed the case on November 14, 2006, and then flatly refused the Motion to Reconsider in 2007. A bigger bitch-slap from the bench, you will seldom find.
Nonetheless, it appears that the good people at CLC and elsewhere, having learned that the courts aren’t going to give them what they wan, have decided to try market forces instead.
This should be interesting.
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