Scatter-site housing is almost as thorny a problem as busing. The antagonists are principally the same: whites protecting their hard-won privileges v. blacks trying to break out of the ghetto. In a bizarre twist of principle, a group of Chicagoans has brought suit in U.S. district court to prevent proposed housing projects from "polluting" their neighborhoods. Their legal foundation: the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.
The suit, filed by 19 community organizations from Chicago's predominantly white Northwest and Southwest sides, charges that the Department of Housing and Urban Development violated the antipollution law when it approved 100 sites in those areas...