Our Story So Far
Medium-sized Eastern city, mired in racial sin, rescued by the redemptive power of the federal courts. Or so we think. But Yonkers resists. And resists. And resists. Yielding under pressure, then reneging, giving ground, coming back to fight again, getting a painful education, along the way, in the peculiar workings of the legal system. It has been ten years since the filing of the lawsuit charging Yonkers with intentional discrimination in housing and schools, five years since the judge found it guilty and imposed his scatter-site sentence. Still, not one of the prescribed low-income projects has appeared in the city’s middle-class neighborhoods. They may be about to: ground was finally broken at one of the sites in mid April. But that could be less than the victory some housing proponents are claiming. It’s high noon now: the last legal shootout has begun, and a long-shot possibility remains that Yonkers might still be able to head off what many of its citizens see as the blueprint for yet another urban disaster.
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