Court Opinion

ID: 9461301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:11:05.107664+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:59.705587
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The majority opinion proposes a double constitutional standard in housing cases — “strict” equal protection if a housing project contemplates a very high percentage of, or exclusively, low income units, and simple “rationality” if it includes a goodly percentage of middle income units — apparently on the theory that middle income housing is for white people and low income housing for nonwhites. As such the opinion carries with it its own abnegation of previous precedents of this and other courts and, with all respect, unrealistically overlooks the fact that this particular project, like many others, employed a mix of low and moderate income units primarily to make it more palatable to the local community. The opinion is, perhaps, another harbinger of a new supposedly benign judicial (on top of a firmly established executive) policy of laissez faire, and as such I do not quarrel with it philosophically here. Rather, I call attention here to it only as a departure from two decades of judicial activism in the area of restoring meaning to that provision of the United States Constitution calling for equal protection of the laws, recognizing, of course, that as now construed above that clause is deemed not to require protection of “poor” people as a class equal to that of “rich,” even while it requires protection by the laws of nonwhite people equal to that of whites. Here by a strained differentiation of our prior case law, on the basis that this was 80 per cent middle income housing (even if originally intended to benefit primarily nonwhite, and therefore probably lower income, residents of the ghettos of the City of New York), that case law, so far as it gave constitutional protection in the housing area to those most needing it, has been pushed further back on the shelf.
It is by no means a confession that this dissent presupposes, I suppose, that housing is, if not a preferred or even fundamental “right,” one of the most basic necessities, not just because it means a roof over the head of an American individual or of his or her family, but because it carries with it a bundle of consequences that deeply involve our daily lives as American citizens, as voters, as students, as learners, as job seekers. *1073It would be an oversimplification to say that a “right to housing” was not in the contemplation of our forebears, because anyone, by moving 100 miles more or less westerly could find his own homestead. One may suggest 200 years later, that such a right to shelter is “fundamental” when many people no matter what they try to do are confined to living in that part of a city where grocery prices and crime rates are highest, garbage is collected last, soft coal is still burned for fuel, windows are broken, schools are worst, medical care is least and jobs are a subway ride and an education away.
This dissent also presupposes that equal protection of the laws means those laws which subsidize, aid and foster a given social policy, not merely those laws which prohibit or penalize antisocial conduct. The fundamental question that this easy-to-gloss-over case deals with is whether there are any constitutional (and perforce court-enforced) remedies for local opposition for racial/social reasons to new housing opportunities (outside the ghetto) that would otherwise be made available by a city for its ghetto residents.
The factual setting of the present case has at the same time both a subtle and a stark side. The subtle side reflects a community’s attempts to conceal its racially motivated negativism against housing for inner city residents, by use of the disguise of legitimate local concerns. The stark side is that there was in the defeat of the project here involved yet another victory for parochialism, helping perpetuate the formidable wall that serves to exclude the urban poor from the more affluent communities on the fringe of our metropolitan areas.1
This is the latest in a line of cases in which a private developer, seeking to build a low income housing project which makes use of governmental subsidies, is unable to secure the necessary governmental approval to permit the project to proceed. As background to this litigation is the sentiment, right or wrong, that at least partial solutions to many of urban America’s problems may be found by breaking down metropolitan income-group clustering, with the poor concentrated in certain political subdivisions, the “central city.”2 Superior educational opportunities, the potential for better housing to be built on presently underutilized land, and an increasing number of jobs all appear to lie in areas — generally “suburbs” — beyond the reach of the urban poor. Coupled with this discrepancy is an understandable reluctance on the part of the low population density communities to grant easy access to their resources.3 We have then a wall that presently exists between affluence and poverty — a wall which some have attempted to breach by litigation aimed at, e.g., land use controls, or as here promoting low or low and middle income housing in what for want of a better generic name I will call the suburbs. Most of this litigation typically has raised, and certainly involved, claims under the equal protection clause both of racial discrimination and of wealth discrimination (although since San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973), the claims of wealth discrimination carry no weight). E. g., Kennedy Park Homes Association v. City of Lackawanna, 436 F.2d 108 (2d Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 1010, 91 S.Ct. 1256, 28 L.Ed.2d 546 (1971); Southern Alameda Spanish *1074Speaking Organization v. City of Union City, 424 F.2d 291 (9th Cir. 1970).
The present decision undercuts the statement by this court in Kennedy Park Homes, a leading case in this area of the law, that
[ejven were we to accept the City’s allegation that any discrimination here resulted from thoughtlessness rather than a purposeful scheme, the City may not escape responsibility for placing its black citizens under a severe disadvantage which it cannot justify.
As such, it also runs contrary to more recent cases from other circuits such as United Farmworkers of Florida Housing Project, Inc. v. City of Delray Beach, 493 F.2d 799, 801 (5th Cir. 1974), Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, 503 F.2d 930 (7th Cir. 1974), and Joseph Skillken & Co. v. City of Toledo, 380 F.Supp. 228 (N.D.Ohio 1974), all of which recognize the importance, of providing a judicial remedy in situations where community opposition to low income housing is predicated upon racial discrimination.4 I would follow Kennedy Park in its view of the demands of the equal protection clause, even though I have a number of doubts, if not misgivings, as to the validity or value of the social hypothesis that the problems of minority groups concentrated in inner city areas can be remedied by diffusion, without creating other problems — such as weakening of political power — of considerable moment.
Concededly on this review we are not bound by the usual rules requiring us to give special weight to findings made by a district judge, since here his role was simply to read, as can we, the printed pages of a record already made. As such, the findings below that there was no racial motivation underlying the failure of the Housing and Development Administration (HDA) to submit the final proposal to the Board of Estimate,5 and no racially discriminatory effect flowing therefrom, seem to me clearly erroneous.6 I will discuss these findings first.
The project here in question originated as part of a program for scatter-site subsidized housing outside of. inner city “ghettos,” of which New York has its share. This was announced by then Mayor John Lindsay on March 16, 1966, doubtless as part of his program to keep the City “cool” in an era of national urban tension, but in any event so as to take advantage of, in the words of his press release, “underutilized areas in outlying sections of New York City.” 7 The September, 1967, Newsletter of the Department of City Planning, announc*1075ing formal designation of 11 sites including the one at bar, pointed out that the object of this phase of the City’s housing program was “to open housing opportunities in sound, predominantly white, middle-income neighborhoods for those now confined to the City’s ghettos. . ” (Emphasis added.) The policy behind the program was stated quite simply: “[Y]ou cannot breach the walls of the ghetto if you only build within them.” The majority opinion seems to me to ignore this stated purpose and thereby somehow seeks to make Faraday Wood into a housing project primarily for the benefit of middle income whites. It was, however, a project primarily for the benefit of low income nonwhite ghetto residents.
In examining the defeat of Faraday Wood, two facts are of special significance in determining whether it was racial discrimination that blocked the project. First, the site was located in the predominantly white North River-dale section of the Bronx; in the 1960 census North Riverdale had a population of 12,376, of which 97.7 per cent were white, 2.0 per cent Negro and 0.3 per cent Puerto Rican. Second, it was community opposition to the concept of a low-middle income scatter-site housing development in Faraday Wood that resulted in its changes of form and ultimate demise. The original concept for the development called for a 300-unit project, with 150 units for low income and 150 for middle income citizens;8 after strong community opposition at the August 2 and September 11, 1967, hearings the planning officials cut this back to a low income component of 20 to 30 per cent only.9 Again, after continuing community opposition expressed emotionally at a May 7, 1968, hearing of the local planning board,10 and expressed practically by the formation of the North Riverdale Civic Association in opposition to the project, the project was said in a mayor’s press release, issued in the heat of a reelection campaign, to be dead. Subsequently it was locally proposed to rezone the Faraday Wood section to a lower density classification. At this point, the City cut out the low income component altogether, making the project, or what was left of it, 50 per cent middle income and 50 per cent elderly, and, after November, 1970, an all elderly one. While there is some dispute whether the then administrator of HDA told a representative of the National *1076Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH) that he agreed “that the racial issue was a fundamental issue, a very important issue in the Riverdale area . . .11 there is no doubt but that it was community opposition to this scatter-site project that killed it.
As in most of these cases, to grasp the true nature of the opposition, it is necessary to examine the validity of the objections actually voiced, to determine whether they were rational and plausible or only superficially valid and used, consciously or unconsciously, to mask discrimination. Cf. Olzman v. Lake Hills Swim Club, Inc., 495 F.2d 1333 (2d Cir. 1974). The justifications for opposition as expressed by the district court were “rapid population growth and subsequent overtaxing of community facilities” and “the expanding number of high-rise apartment buildings.” But there was no evidence adduced in this record to support those concerns; on the contrary, the Faraday Wood site was considered by all the public officials testifying at trial as most appropriate. As to overburdening schools, there was every indication that construction of the already approved and budgeted John F. Kennedy Educational Center in Riverdale would resolve all classroom needs for years to come; the project developer, moreover, offered to provide 7,000 square feet of extra classroom space pending completion, to avoid any temporary problems. Parking objections were taken care of by incorporating an underground garage large enough to handle one car per dwelling unit. Recreational area objections were adequately responded to by opening up to community use seven of the eight acres on the site. No showing whatsoever was made of any adverse effect on transportation facilities or police, fire or hospital services; indeed the only evidence in the record was that all of these were in abundance in a community which was considered “among the most if not the most privileged community in the city” according to a City Planning Committee executive.12 As for the “high-rise” objection, not only was the project designed to be built on only one out of eight acres, with the high-rise structure back from and shielded from the street, but many other apartment buildings (not for low income) had been built, including high-rises. No zoning exception was needed for the project. Finally, 1971 city rezoning left Faraday Wood for future apartment construction and, interestingly, the U.S.S.R. Mission to the United Nations, which ultimately acquired the site in question, is in fact building a large high-rise apartment structure without community opposition. See New York Times, Jan. 13, 1974, § 8, at 1 (city ed.). All of the evidence to my mind supports the proposition that the reasons advanced to oppose scatter-site housing at Faraday Wood were invalid and only a cover for discrimination.
Even if my interpretation of these facts were incorrect, however, at the very least there was a racially discriminatory effect. The district court relied heavily on, and Judge Lumbard’s opinion reemphasizes, the allegation that “the determination did not have an unconstitutional racially discriminatory effect because 80% of the units in the project were reserved for middle income families and thus the brunt of the project’s termination was borne by those families.” 13 I would not accept the allegation in any event, since originally the project was designed for 50 per cent or 150 low in.come families. But even accepting that allegation, what about the 20 per cent of 300, i. e., 60 families left in the inner city? If as is likely the mix of low and middle income families was changed so as to make the project more palatable to the North Riverdale community, nevertheless the rejection of the project still *1077adversely affected a number of ghetto residents. Are we to have two different constitutional rules, as the majority opinion suggests, depending on the housing mix? In any event, I believe we have a different factual case from the one conceived by the district judge and ruled on by the majority.
In measuring effect, it seems to me, it has to be remembered, as the majority has not done, that the Faraday Wood project was part of a program which was in the nature of affirmative action to remedy the effects of past discrimination. To say that a decision to terminate the project has no racially discriminatory effect is to disregard the reason that the scatter-site housing plan was adopted in the first instance — a reason that was declared in advance by the City itself.
The sole reason for the Faraday Wood project was to provide decent housing for the inner city poor who were presently said to be residing in the New York ghettos. Middle income units were included because the trend in such developments was, for a number of reasons, to mix low and middle income units.14 Such mixed projects have proven to be more successful than those including only low income housing. The majority opinion fails to recognize these facts, and in doing so neutralizes the primary effect of the decision to terminate the Faraday Wood project, which was an effect on the inner city poor, primarily members of minority groups.
As I read the majority opinion, it relies principally on four cases to sustain its position that there need be no showing of a “compelling state interest” for abandonment of the project: Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 74, 92 S.Ct. 862, 31 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972); Palmer v. Thompson, 403 U.S. 217, 91 S.Ct. 1940, 29 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971); Village of Belle Terre v. Bo-raas, 416 U.S. 1, 94 S.Ct. 1536, 39 L.Ed.2d 797 (1974), and Acevedo v. Nassau County, 500 F.2d 1078 at 1082 (2d Cir.1974).15
Lindsey v. Normet contains language to the effect that there is no constitutionally protected right to a certain quality of housing, but the case does not involve racially discriminatory site selection (or non-selection). Lindsey v. Normet, moreover, is essentially a case dealing with procedural due process relating to a state Forcible Entry and Wrongful Detention statute, rather than the equal protection claim here.
Likewise inapposite is Palmer v. Thompson which held that a city could not be forced to continue to operate recreational facilities, regardless of its motivation in closing them. The opinions in Palmer are replete with references to the fact that the case was dealing with non-essential recreational facilities — Mr. Justice Blackmun referred to them in his concurring opinion as “nice-to-have but not essential.” 403 U.S. at 229, 91 S.Ct. at 1947. The present case involves a clear necessity, housing, and a duty of the City of New York, recognized by the City, to provide solutions to the problems of segregated housing. As this court said in Otero v. New York City Housing Authority, 484 F.2d at 1133, “the Authority is under an obligation [both con*1078stitutional and statutory] to act affirmatively to achieve integration in housing.”16 (Emphasis added'.)
Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, while it contains some rather broad language in a zoning context regarding the preservation of environmental amenities against the onslaught of nonfamilial lifestyles, surely does not support an abandonment of the “strict scrutiny” test in a racial discrimination case; Belle Terre, moreover, concerned a tiny village, one square mile in area and containing only a few hundred residents, as compared to North Riverdale’s many times larger population and area.
I come finally then to Acevedo and I am troubled by it because it is not so easy to distinguish as appellants would make out; their suggestion that this case involves governmental obstruction of private efforts while Acevedo held only that Nassau County had no affirmative duty to build low-cost family housing at Mitchell Field I find not altogether convincing. There was, however, no showing in Acevedo that housing in Nassau County was racially segregated de jure or de facto.17 Assuming that the Acevedo panel did not intend to overrule Kennedy Park Homes sub silentio, one must assume that it was reluctant to impose an affirmative duty to construct low income housing on a community not demonstrably segregated or with a history, too long and too well developed to reconstruct, of concentrations of minority groups in the central city. Here, however, we have the City of New York and we are talking about integrated housing — albeit on a tiny scale — in one limited area. As such, in principle, there is no difference between this case and Kennedy Park; there may be more bridges out of Harlem than the one out of Lackawanna’s ghetto, mentioned in the majority opinion here, but the ability of nonwhite population concentrations in the City of New York to cross the river to social justice18 is none the greater.
In terms of relief, at this late date and on the record before us it is hard to know whether an alternative site in Riv-erdale is available for possible construction of a comparable project, or whether any of the plans developed by appellant AMIH would be useful at such a site. These would obviously be matters for the district court to consider upon remand.19
*1079At the very least there remains, however, what to my mind is a valid claim for damages, one which is supported on contractual grounds alone. See Restatement of Contracts § 90; Keco Industries, Inc. v. United States, 428 F.2d 1233, 1237, 192 Ct.Cl. 773 (1970). See Knapp, Enforcing the Contract to Bargain, 44 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 673, 688-90 (1969). Appellant AMIH states that over $200,000 was invested in attempting to produce and in revising a project which was never submitted to the Board of Estimate for reasons which I believe can be treated as amounting to bad faith. As such, some relief, even under New York law and our pendent jurisdiction, should be available. Cf. Planet Construction Corp. v. Board of Education, 7 N.Y.2d 381, 198 N.Y.S.2d 68, 165 N.E.2d 758 (1970).
I would, then, reverse and remand.

. The local community here involved, North Riverdale, is not a suburb but a part of New York City, with its own planning district.

. See generally Haar & latridis, Housing the Poor in Suburbia (1974) (hereinafter cited as Haar); A. Downs, Opening Up the Suburbs: An Urban Strategy for America (1973); Branfman, Cohen & Trubek, Measuring the Invisible Wall: Land Use Controls and the Residential Patterns of the Poor, 82 Yale L.J. 483 (1973); Shields & Spector, Opening Up the Suburbs: Notes on a Movement for Social Change, 2 Yale Rev.L. & Soc. Action 300 (1972). But see Glazer, On “Opening Up” the Suburbs, The Public Interest 89 (1974).

. A November 5, 1974, advertisement for a town-sponsored “public service” television program put it very succinctly: “Is the onslaught of urban sprawl creeping eastward from New York City to Suffolk County? Does the mass of humanity threaten the serenity of suburban living as it was once enjoyed?” N.Y. Times, Nov. 5, 1974, at 61, cols. 7 & 8 (city ed.).

. See also Appeal of Kit-Mar Builders, Inc., 439 Pa. 466, 268 A.2d 765 (1970) (striking down lot size requirements); Appeal of Girsh, 437 Pa. 237, 263 A.2d 395 (1970) (exclusion of apartment buildings from community zoning plan was unreasonable). While neither of these cases involved proven racial discrimination, they express the need for a strict standard in reviewing local zoning plans which fail to take into account regional housing needs. But see United States v. City of Black Jack, 372 F.Supp. 319 (E.D.Mo.1974), rev’d & remanded 508 F.2d 1179 (8th Cir. 1974).

. This is not a case where a plan was submitted to and rejected by the Board of Estimate or final approving authority. Cf. Acevedo v. Nassau County, 500 F.2d 1078, at 1081-1082 (2d Cir. 1974). To be sure, there is no guarantee that the Board of Estimate would have approved the Faraday Wood plan in any of its various phases, but absent a good faith submission to it we will never know. At the very least, it seems to me “best efforts” were required of the HDA. See Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, 436 F.2d 306 (7th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 922, 91 S.Ct. 1378, 28 L.Ed.2d 661 (1971).

. I agree with the majority that Palmer v. Thompson, 403 U.S. 217, 91 S.Ct. 1940, 29 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971), does not exclude inquiry into motives in a claim of racial discrimination. While there is language that it is the facial content or the effect of a law which must provide the proof of discrimination, id. at 225, 91 S.Ct. 1940, throughout the opinions in Palmer, there are constant references to the “meager” quality of the record then before the court. In the present case, the record is a substantial one, and while the proof of racial motivation is circumstantial, it is nonetheless persuasive to me.

. The scatter-site housing program had the stated purpose of providing opportunity for “status advancement” of the residents of the City’s ghettos. Proponents of “opening up the suburbs” set forth a number of reasons for dispersing racial groups, consisting of lower and middle income American citizens, throughout underutilized areas in the city or its suburbs, in addition to long cherished no*1075tions of elementary social justice: to provide greater access to job opportunity; to provide an escape from the slums, with their high crime ratios and low housing standards; to furnish greater educational opportunity (and thereby incidentally, avoid the necessity of busing for educational equalization purposes); to redistribute the cost of combatting poverty and the social ills it helps effectuate; to halt the decay of the inner city; and to avoid a society that is divided if not polarized. See A. Downs, Opening Up the Suburbs: An Urban Strategy for America 115 (1973). It happens that the mayor’s housing program, to the extent it contemplated the increase of housing choices and promotion of a more racially balanced community, furthered U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) policies. Title VIII, Civil Rights Act of 1968, Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601, states that “It is the policy of the United States to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States.” See also 42 U.S.C. § 3608; Otero v. New York City Housing Authority, 484 F.2d 1122, 1132-1134 (2d Cir. 1973). See Haar, supra at 319.

. The New York Housing Authority’s original plan called for 300 units. The original AMIH proposal, filed July 28, 1967, indicated a willingness to build 465 units with an equal mix of low and middle income units.

. An HDA memo in evidence attributed the shelving of the original proposal to “opposition from the neighborhood to low-income housing . . ..” At all times, it should be noted, the project did contemplate at least 10 per cent usage for elderly citizens.

. Opposition at this meeting was on the basis of the threat of the project to existing property values, the overtaxing of community facilities and schools, and the possibility of increased crime. It is interesting that a City Planning official at the meeting stated, “Some of your community leaders have told me that there is local reluctance to face [the] issue [of providing “increased opportunity” for “status advancement” to “today’s poor — mostly Negroes and Puerto Ricans”] in public discussion, that it may be hidden in a smokescreen of seemingly plausible objections.” Statement of Barney Rabinow, Assistant Executive Director, Department of City Planning, May 7, 1968 (Plaintiffs’ Ex. 6).

. The HDA administrator, Albert Walsh, said that he told the NCDH official that he “believed that [he] had been able or would be able ... to isolate [racial prejudice] from the responsible majority of the community .

. He did except hospital services if the development were exclusively for the elderly.

. In fairness to Judge Ward, however, he said “70-80%.” 362 F.Supp. at 656.

. The September, 1967, Newsletter of the Department of City Planning which proposed the scatter-site plan indicates that almost all of the contemplated projects involved mixing income groups. One of the reasons for doing this was to promote greater community acceptance of the project.

. The majority also mentions at n. 5 San Antonio School District v. Rodriquez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973), but the present case does not involve a claim of discriminatory treatment brought about by suspect wealth classifications. The majority does not rely, as did Judge Ward, 362 F.Supp. at 658, on James v. Valtierra, 402 U.S. 137, 91 S.Ct. 1331, 28 L.Ed.2d 678 (1971); until better advised I will continue to consider Valtierra as being primarily based on the sanctity of a referendum. See dissent in English v. Town of Huntington, 2 Cir., 448 F.2d 319, 324, 327 n. 5 (1971). Other courts have taken the narrow view of Valtierra. E. g., Gautreaux v. City of Chicago, 480 F.2d 210 (7th Cir. 1973); Sisters of Providence of St. Mary of the Woods v. City of Evanston, 335 F.Supp. 396, 403 (N.D.Ill.971). See also Note, The Equal Protection Clause and Exclusionary Zoning After Valtierra and Dandridge, 81 Yale L.J. 61 (1971).

. Judge Mansfield’s opinion went on to say that “Not only may such [discriminatory] practices be enjoined, but affirmative action to erase the effects of past discrimination and desegregate housing patterns may be ordered.” 484 F.2d at 1133. And see Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 18, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431-432, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971); Associated General Contractors v. Altshuler, 490 F.2d 9 (1st Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 957, 94 S.Ct. 1971, 40 L.Ed.2d 307 (1974). Norwalk CORE v. Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, 395 F.2d 920 (2d Cir. 1968) is with Otero the other leading Second Circuit case requiring affirmative action to provide more housing for nonwhites. The South had to face up to these problems almost two decades ago. Heyward v. Public Housing Administration, 238 F.2d 689 (5th Cir. 1956).

. The district court in Acevedo specifically found that “The evidence before the court does not disclose the existence of fixed patterns of home ownership in Nassau County.” 369 F.Supp. at 1390. Additionally, in Acevedo, the housing project in question was to be built in an area “in close proximity to other areas populated by significant numbers of Blacks.” Id. In Acevedo there was no duty conceded by the County, as there was here promulgated by the City, to build low income housing.

. This is not to say, of course, that Harlem, or Spanish Harlem, is New York’s only nonwhite ghetto area.

. The relief requested points up the problems which face any court attempting to counteract the effects of exclusionary housing practices and suggests that a legislative solution to this problem would very likely be superior to a court directed plan for integrated housing. See, e. g., Mass.Gen.Laws Ann. ch. 40B §§ 20-23 (Supp.1973) (which provides for a state level agency with the power to override local community objections to the construction of low income housing); Note, The Massachusetts Zoning Appeals Law: First Breach in the Exclusionary Wall, 54 B.U.L.Rev. 37 (1974). The fact that the legislature might be able to provide a broader or *1079better remedy than the courts in no way takes away from the compelling nature of the proposition that somebody act, a proposition that I believe is demanded by the application of the equal protection clause in this situation. The Kennedy Park Homes and Otero courts, and those in the cases in the text above accompanying footnote 4 of this dissent, have not been unaware that enforcement of the equal protection clause sometimes has the result of making the courts active in areas where a history of not always benign neglect has resulted in local racial discrimination.