New fair-housing plan

Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros is this week announcing an ambitious agenda aimed at stamping out inner-city discrimination and eliminating racial barriers to fair housing.

The one-year campaign uses the approach that has put Mr. Cisneros at odds with some of President Clinton's advisers, who prefer solutions to the urban problem that are based on economics, not race.

The plan includes stringent enforcement of fair-housing laws and aggressive attacks on mortgage and insurance redlining ``in order to combat the spatial separation by race and income that now polarizes many of America's cities.''

Redlining refers to the practice of refusing to do business in certain areas.

It also calls for a National Fair Housing Summit by Jan. 1 to formulate an action plan.