Council radicals Teresa Mosqueda and Dan Strauss are starting the process of ending suburbs. They’ve introduced language that bans the use of the term “single-family only zones.” In its place will be an innocuous term: “Neighborhood Residential.”

Adherents to the principles of critical race theory believe racism is embedded within all American institutions and systems. That includes housing. Mosqueda believes neighborhoods labeled single-family only zones are embedded with racism.

“Language matters. ‘Single family’ zoning may seem to some as merely a planning term, but we know historically it has been used to further exclusionary practices and discriminatory policies of the past,” Mosqueda claimed. “If Seattle is going to be an equitable and just city, then we must also apply that same lens to our zoning code. After years of discussion, we are acting on what we know is right to undo the legacy of exclusion that exists within our planning documents — starting with how we talk about our neighborhoods.”

Mosqueda is right: Language does matter. Change the language, then implement the plan. The intent is to change the language to kill suburbs, traditionally made up of single-family homes. But in doing so, it effectively brought crime, homelessness, and trash to residential neighborhoods that have been mostly untouched by Seattle’s worsening problems.

The replacement term “Neighborhood Residential” comes from Neighborhoods for All, a report by the Seattle Planning Commission (SPC). The report makes the legislation’s intent transparent, arguing suburbs are an “obstacle to our City’s value of race and social justice.”

Happy with your driveway? Activists are not. Suburbs are too car-friendly, and not everyone can afford a car. The spaces are to be reprioritized for “housing and public space for people over car storage.”

And forget about keeping your communities small and tight-knit. The report urges an end to restrictions on occupancy limits for single-family homes. They believe “zoning should only regulate the density and building form, not the relation of the inhabitants.”