Most fair housing advocates maintain that integration is a core aim of the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 (FHA). They contend that to achieve that integration, affordable housing must be sited in predominantly white, affluent areas. These advocates often cite legislative sponsors such as Senator Edmund Muskie, who declared that the aim of the FHA was not to provide a revitalized model city area or “golden ghetto” as the solution to the plight of African Americans. Courts have tended to agree.

Challenging this orthodoxy, this Article argues that community development—and not just integration—should be deemed a legitimate tactic under the FHA for redressing the harms of segregation. It asserts that legislative history is of limited utility in resolving current debates on remedial tactics because liberal civil rights advocates of the 1960s were operating under a “perpetrator perspective,” viewing racial discrimination solely as the misguided conduct of individual actors rather than as a form of structural injustice. Taking the perspective of the victim rather than the perpetrator reveals that the preeminent purpose of the FHA was to expand the housing options that are available to historically oppressed populations.

Combining insights from textualism, the evolution of antidiscrimination doctrine, and critical legal theory, this Article excavates choice—free of interlocking race and class constraints—as the FHA’s chief concern. This approach sheds new light on the federal government’s obligation to affirmatively further fair housing with clear implications for both the role of revitalization initiatives in urban planning as well as the operation of the Housing Choice Voucher program.