A columnist attributes the success of President-elect Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric with a rise in potentially illegal land use decisions around the state of Virginia.
Petula Dvorak writes a column for The Washington Post calling out the bigotry inherent to recent regulatory and legal frameworks of the planning profession.
"Sewage lines, traffic patterns and zoning ordinances. Meet the instruments of bigotry in America today," writes Dvorak.
Dvorak cites three recent examples of racism on display in recent planning and land use controversies in the state of Virginia—"cases where development regulations and mundane municipal laws have been used to smokescreen surging Islamophobia."
According to Dvorak, the episodes of racist opposition to Muslims are new to these communities, places like Spotsylvania County, Culpeper, and Nokesville.
FULL STORY: A smokescreen for bigotry: Disguising anti-Muslim bias with land-use objections
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