[apparent]

Perhaps I have a different understanding of "regulatory capture" than you do. To me, it means that the regulators are captured by the entities they are supposed to be regulating. It often happens when the main job prospects for people in an industry are either as regulators or in industry. If an oil company offers jobs to policy maker whose boss gets voted out of Congress, they can "capture" the regulators, who won't want to kill their golden ticket.

I'm unclear how this applies to zoning rules voted on by the people who live in an area. There is not an intermediary "zoning regulator" who is capturing anyone. Similarly, there is not a constituency that is being "captured" inappropriately. It is literally just a group of people deciding how they want to live.

If this is regulatory capture, then so is having laws against automatic weapons and speeding.

[Schiendelman]

The harms potentially caused by shooting someone or hitting them with your car at high speed are not the same as someone building something next to you that you find aesthetically displeasing. Can I ask you to step back and think about the fact that you just made that comparison?

[apparent]

You seem to be projecting racism without evidence. I specifically mentioned increased traffic from the construction of apartment complexes in a suburban neighborhood. Surely we can all agree that traffic is a reasonable concern? Other similar concerns would include overburdening schools (in at least the short run, before more can be built) and electrical grids (in areas with brownouts/blackouts).

I don't know why you think that the only reason someone might want their suburban neighborhood to stay suburban is the color of their neighbors' skin; perhaps that says more about you than anything else.

[Schiendelman]

Racist outcomes do not require intent. That's why the Fair Housing Act was written to make discriminatory outcomes illegal, not just intent. And no, I don't think you're racist at all, but the outcomes of the policies you want to keep are racist.

If you're open to some books about this, or study work, I'd be happy to cite. Are you open to changing your mind?

[apparent]

You seem to use the word racist in a different way than I do. What I have learned is that an action can only be racist if there was a race-based intent. It cannot be racist if there was not a race-based intent. For example, if a blind person was unaware that his colleague was Asian, and he hurt the colleague's feelings by referring to his hard work ethic, that is not (to my understanding) a racist remark.

Similarly, a policy is not a racist policy if it disproportionately affects people of one race or another. If that were the case, any policy that increased the share of taxes paid by the poor, or the rich, would be racist (against black people or Indian people). But I believe that any change in tax rates is not intrinsically racist, which is what an outcome/correlation-based definition would require.

You're free to share links, but TBH I think we're speaking different languages here. You've also not answered my point about regulatory capture, which you seem to define in a novel way.

[Schiendelman]

Honestly, if you want to understand these issues, you'll have to learn the language I'm using. I would start here, since I think you are leaning on the word "racist": https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF1305...

[apparent]

Hm, I don't think I "have to learn the language [you're] using". I am familiar with CRS folks who use terms that way, just as I am familiar with the majority of people who use the terms the way I use them.

If you have any relevant documents, feel free to share. The one you shared does not seem to back your definition of racist/racism, let alone provide reasoning for why your preferred definition is superior to the one I use.

For the record, I find mine to be more apt because I find it useful to distinguish between policies that have disparate impact by race/age/wealth/sex/etc., rather than lumping such policies in with those that seek to discriminate against people based on their race/age/wealth/sex/etc. If we call all of those policies "racist" or "sexist" or whatever-ist, then we have to come up a new term like "intentionally racist" to describe the subset of policies where intent is present.

I generally prefer not to have to make up new terms if we have words that already (for many people) have that meaning. But hey, some people just love doing the euphemism treadmill and its equivalents, as here.