(CNSNews.com) – The Oba­ma administration’s effort to cre­ate gov­ern­ment-sanc­tioned “sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties” moved ahead this week, with the announce­ment of almost $5 mil­lion in plan­ning grants.

Sev­en­teen poor com­mu­ni­ties across the U.S. will share the $4.95 mil­lion to draft plans for the “next gen­er­a­tion” of pub­lic hous­ing and oth­er “sus­tain­able” neigh­bor­hood improve­ments, such as bet­ter schools, anti-crime efforts, and greater access to health care and gro­cery stores.

Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment (HUD) Sec­re­tary Shaun Dono­van said the “Choice Neigh­bor­hoods Plan­ning Grants” are intend­ed to revi­tal­ize entire neigh­bor­hoods – “to improve the lives of the res­i­dents who live there.”

In oth­er words, the planned infra­struc­ture improve­ments lean heav­i­ly on social engineering.

The Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion defines sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties as places that have a vari­ety of hous­ing and trans­porta­tion choic­es, with des­ti­na­tions (such as schools and shop­ping) that are close to home. “As a result, they tend to have low­er trans­porta­tion costs, reduce air pol­lu­tion and stormwa­ter runoff, decrease infra­struc­ture costs, pre­serve his­toric prop­er­ties and sen­si­tive lands, save peo­ple time in traf­fic, be more eco­nom­i­cal­ly resilient and meet mar­ket demand for dif­fer­ent types of hous­ing at dif­fer­ent prices points.”

“It means safer, green­er, more liv­able com­mu­ni­ties,” Pres­i­dent Oba­ma said two years ago.

Con­tin­ue arti­cle here:  http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obamas-housing-agency-spending-millions-transform-inner-cities-sustainable-communities