Last December, Donald Trump declared: “With opportunity zones, we’re drawing investment into neglected and underserved communities of America so that all Americans, regardless of ZIP code, have access to the American dream.”

But the American dream for whom, exactly?

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Trump’s 2017 Opportunity Zones program, part of his extremely unpopular tax law, has proven to be a massive boon to the 1%, just like the rest of the tax law.

While the dressed-up descriptions of opportunity zones boast moving “billions of dollars into low-income communities,” what they actually do is gentrify the very neighborhoods they pretend to revitalize, displacing black and brown working-class people from their homes and further destabilizing already vulnerable areas, all to benefit wealthy developers, like Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

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Opportunity zones are designated areas in low-income neighborhoods, which tend to be predominantly black and Latinx. The Trump tax bill offers tax breaks to developers who “invest” in those communities. Developers can either defer paying or pay no taxes on the developments they build depending on how long they are invested in the neighborhoods.

The idea is that new investment will help create jobs in neighborhoods that need economic growth.

But there are no requirements on what these investments look like, and no requirements on who these developers invest in. The people who benefit from the preferential tax treatment don’t need to live, work, or have a business in the opportunity zone. They can come in, build new housing developments or businesses that local residents can’t afford, get their tax break, and leave.

These tax breaks overwhelmingly benefit wealthy people or corporations — those who have the money to invest, to begin with.

In fact, studies of similar programs found that instead of creating new jobs, jobs were just moved from place to place, and very few new ones were created. Analysis after analysis shows that this program will not spur useful economic growth, but instead incentivize gentrification.

Many of these zones do not foster development that is meant to fuel economic growth for the communities they inhabit.

In Houston, Texas — where more than one in five people live in poverty — this program has given rise to the construction of a 46-story, glass-wrapped apartment tower, where amenities will include a yoga lawn and a pool surrounded by cabanas and daybeds. This is the very city where two-thirds of the neighborhoods vulnerable to gentrification are located within opportunity zones.

In Washington, D.C. — my home of 11 years and the city with the highest intensity of gentrifying neighborhoods — I have watched the block-by-block takeover by developers who seek a tax break and want to make a profit by any means necessary.

The rationale supporting opportunity zones has proliferated for decades under both Democratic and Republican leadership. Though sometimes referred to by other names like “empowerment zones” or “promise zones,” the underlying thinking remains the same.

Incentivizing corporations and developers to buy up entire street blocks and build condominiums in working-class communities has drastically worsened race and class disparities across the country.

Opportunity zones continue the trend of incentivizing wealthy white people to return to the very neighborhoods they fled in the ‘80s and ‘90s because they were “too” black.

Such programs allow private equity firms, some of which have partners in Trump’s inner circle, to have an outsized influence over how growth and development happens in towns that had previously been cared for by people of color.

Real opportunity zones would invest in local schools, community-centered infrastructure projects, and jobs and skills training — not line the pockets of Trump’s developer cronies at the expense of everyday workers.

Economic forecasts show another recession looming, and once again it’ll be working people left holding the bag. The real opportunity our communities need is a tax code that allows the American dream to be within reach for all of us.

We deserve a fair and equitable economy, not another false promise of “opportunity” that actually just displaces us from our neighborhoods and hands them over to wealthy developers. It’s up to all of us to protect the sanctity of our communities from being steamrolled to make way for glass high-rise buildings and dog parks.