And nobody, at least around here, is talking about building any of those massive Soviet-style low-income housing projects that became the shame of the Great Society.

But affordable housing for working families is in seriously short supply in Salt Lake City. The last thing we need is a policy that would make that gap harder to fill by imposing an unrealistic vision of more affordable housing in some of the city's less-affordable neighborhoods.

That's why a draft policy now before the City Council is an example of the perfect being the enemy of the good, and why it should be abandoned.

The council has a say in this matter because it is sitting on a pot of money - right now about $4 million - it can lend to developers to encourage them to build homes and apartments that are within the reach of more people. A draft policy would limit future use of those funds to units built in neighborhoods with lower percentages of low-income households.

These are not only, or even predominantly, units for our poorest neighbors. Given the high cost of housing and the low wages prevailing among certain professions, special efforts are necessary to provide affordable housing for, say, teachers and police officers. By some lights, the city is about 25,000 units short of demand.

Projects aimed at attracting, even subsidizing, residents of certain income groups ought not be clustered together in some sort of pre-stigmatized ghetto that will have to be endured for a generation or so before they tear that down for a publicly subsidized Wal-Mart.

But developers, generally, aren't planning any such thing. They envision modern developments that, in theory, will revitalize their neighborhoods by attracting shops and restaurants to cater to people who, now that they've found affordable housing, might have a few extra shekels to spend.

Insisting that the next round of such projects be pushed into neighborhoods with fewer low-income households only threatens to create zoning fights, huffy neighbors and projects that will be smaller and more costly because of the extra money that will have to be spent on expensive land and expensive lawyers.

Projects seeking public aid of any kind should be thoroughly scrutinized for quality and affordability. But trying to shoehorn them into expensive, unwelcoming neighborhoods doesn't help anyone.