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When Dr. King came to Connecticut in 1944, he was astonished by the openness and inclusivity the sleepy town of Simsbury provided in contrast to the roiling hatred he knew from his youth growing up under the shadow of Jim Crow in Georgia. 

The 16-year-old college freshman was changed forever by his experience working on a tobacco farm that summer, and wrote in his diary about misgivings he had on the train ride back to Atlanta, his memory fresh with integrated dances and dinners that left him with feelings of fondness and admiration for the welcome he received in the Nutmeg State.

But what King likely could never have imagined when he was touring the verdant and friendly Hartford-area communities he found inspiring was that the same problem he found sanctuary from in the towns and suburbs north of the capital was taking hold in silence all around him. A problem with roots in the Depression that still takes hold today. 

Connecticut is beautiful. With its hillside vistas and maple-lined orchards. Its winding roads, rustic covered bridges and tucked-away lakes serving as an idyllic backdrop to the manifold municipalities making up a tableau of bucolic perfection undermined by the very ugly barriers built in to that impression preventing people of color from participating in the picturesque Gilmore Girls image the rest of the country has become so familiar with. It is one of the most diverse states in the nation, with one of the worst underlying stories of segregation, as has been highlighted in national news outlets over the past few months. 

Starting with a bill in 2019 that took aim at exclusionary municipal zoning laws, the state has become a focal point in an effort to desegregate housing policies long in place that have led to its being ranked near the bottom compared to the rest of the country in terms of housing affordability and racial integration. SB 1024 and others introduced by a group of legislators with ties to an organization called Desegregate CT looks to address these issues in a multifaceted way by targeting core issues like allowable building types as well as some ancillary ones, like preventing zoning board members from considering the “character of the community” when making decisions related to housing.

[Connecticut is] ranked near the bottom compared to the rest of the country in terms of housing affordability and racial integration

Dating back to its start as a diffuse collective of Ecclesiastical societies that helped it retain its status as a Charter Colony up until the Revolution, the independent legacy of Connecticut is today expressed in strong and somewhat autonomous local governments operating largely on their own relative to the other very liberal northeast states. Activists have pointed to this dynamic as the foundation of the housing problem and are now moving to make town meetings and building committee hearings the frontlines in their fight against segregation. Towns in each of the state’s six counties have come under scrutiny from the legislation’s proponents who want to push affluent towns to allow different types of development they say will assuage some of these deficiencies, in the process diversifying communities with populations that have for decades hovered around being about 90% white. 

The most common form of housing that 1024 supporters are advocating for are multi-family units built close to downtown centers and the dozens of Metro-North and commuter rail stations littered throughout the state. These types of dwellings are critical to the integration process, as the lack of housing options elsewhere combines with high home prices in wealthy communities to confine lower-income earners to larger cities like New London and Waterbury, creating a situation in which over 60 percent of the state’s Black and Latinx residents live in just 15 of Connecticut’s 169 towns. Another popular solution proffered in the language of the bill are the so-called In-law apartments (or ADUs) attached to single-family homes that have been proven as a palliative measure in the fight for fair housing. ADUs, in particular, serve a number of different groups affected by inequality, including people with disabilities and young people without significant incomes, and the bill would alleviate much of the public hearing process required to approve their construction.

60 percent of the state’s Black and Latinx residents live in just 15 of Connecticut’s 169 towns

The push is not without its detractors, however, as Republicans across the state have taken up the issue in an attempt to drive a wedge into the newfound Democratic supermajority in the statehouse. Their appeals to NIMBYism and the dog whistle of small town identity politics is best encapsulated by Representative Kimberly Fiorello of Greenwich, who attempted to tie zoning to cancel culture in an appeal to voters last year and who continues to work in unison with other conservative lawmakers that have opposed the measure since its inception. Fiorello, along with former Gubernatorial candidate Tim Herbst and other state Republicans, have raised few objections apart from so-called “character” and independence arguments ranging from the opaque (that the new developments are somehow a threat to infrastructure and water safety) to the outright racist, as in my hometown, where last summer a board member insisted during a livestreamed meeting that non-whites just don’t like rural communities like East Haddam. 

This series of loosely strung arguments contra the more nuanced and academic ones used to support Democratic legislation is leading to misconceptions that are limiting the ability of some who might otherwise benefit from an informed opinion and open mind, according to Sara Bronin, a lawyer and licensed architect who is also the founder of Desegregate CT. 

“I think opponents of this legislation are misunderstanding how it can benefit their towns and Connecticut as a whole,” she said.

“I think most people want to do the right thing. I think that when presented with information and the opportunity to do the right thing, most people will. I think one of the issues that you’re seeing now is that some people have been misinformed by their leaders about what this bill is and can do and so it’s our job to go out there and explain to people why zoning reform is important, why it matters, and what it has the potential to do. Our effort is only the first step in hopefully continuing a yearslong conversation about these issues.” 

I think opponents of this legislation are misunderstanding how it can benefit their towns and Connecticut as a whole” - Sara Bronin, a lawyer and licensed architect who is also the founder of Desegregate CT

A case study for the issues Bronin and others are pushing to change is West Hartford, a tony suburb dotted with Tudor mansions that borders the state capital and has for a century been affected by a host of discriminatory housing practices still in place today. 

Beginning in the 1920s when the town’s rural makeup began to shift as a result of its swelling population, West Hartford resorted to different practices to keep the predominantly white image of the town it wanted to sell to prospective home buyers from being sullied. After it hired Robert Whitten, a notorious consultant who had previously overseen the development of plans for Cleveland, Atlanta and New York City, West Hartford began at his recommendation to outlaw the type of apartment-style buildings he vilified as “tenements” that could have brought more black residents into the town. This was followed immediately by a redlining effort in the next decade that even further stratified the area through a series of color-coded designations that painted West Hartford almost exclusively in the “green” and “blue” categories signifying desirability and locking in the town’s wealth for generations.

This trend continued after the war, when restrictive covenants and real estate steering helped keep the town as the exclusive preserve of the middle and upper classes even as its population increased again from over 30- to almost 70,000. 

As these kinds of deliberate efforts subsided thanks to court rulings the passage of the Fair Housing Act, newer and more subtle forms of discrimination began to take hold and replace their 20th Century antecedents both locally and throughout the nation. Since 2018, some residents of West Hartford have put up a very vocal fight against a new deed-restricted multi-family development that would add to the town’s 2,000 unit stock of affordable housing. The pushback eventually failed following a party-line vote in December (the board also approved ADUs for all single-family houses in January via a similar 6-3 vote) but succeeded in demonstrating the obstacles and aversions advocates face elsewhere and in town. 

“I see this as a very long process to try to show people that common sense zoning reforms will work for Connecticut and I’m hopeful that people will see that,” Bronin said.

CT is one of the most segregated states. It's time to end decades worth of discriminatory housing policies by empowering localities to create a more equitable future for communities. That’s why I’m supporting #SB1024; a great first step to #DesegregateCT. https://t.co/sS00Ham0Xh

— CT Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden (@TreasurerWooden) March 16, 2021

“As towns become more comfortable with approving housing as a right, they will then be more comfortable in expanding that to new areas” like RAD subsidies and a mansion tax. 

In the end, what Bronin deemed as common sense may be too optimistic, even in a deep blue state like Connecticut. Segregation is poison, but ingrained racism and learned indifference only add to the lack of information and staid disinterest surrounding the issue that reformers here are facing. The push within the Capitol is heading in the wrong direction, even as the pandemic continues to expose the deadly results of segregation nationwide. While the problem is not exclusive to Connecticut, it can set an example by adapting new measures to combat the systemic injustices laid bare over the past year. Dr. King once called procrastination “the thief of time.” Now, more than ever, The Land of Steady Habits has the chance to fulfill his dream.