The lack of public-transit connections to areas north of the city makes it difficult for those who rely on transit—primarily the poor and people of color—to access job opportunities located in those suburbs.
It prevented them to try to make a living and higher income.
This design decision meant that many people of color and poor people, who most often relied on public transportation, lacked access to the lauded public park at Jones Beach.5
The height of the bridge was design particular to keep colored and poor people from accessing to different places.
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities.
I'm not really familiar with the MARTA and the history because I'm from the southern part of Georgia. I didn't think the MARTA's transportation system would have discrimination in its history because a lot of people (no matter the race or how much money in his/her pocket) use it in today's society.
Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones.
It shows how they interpret and enforced Jim Crow Laws. And it gives the audience a sense of what the article is going to be about.
According to his biographer, Moses directed that these overpasses be built intentionally low so that buses could not pass under them.4 This design decision meant that many people of color and poor people, who most often relied on public transportation, lacked access to the lauded public park at Jones Beach.5
Unfortunately, this isn't a new tactic by any means and has even been seen in countries such as Brazil. It may or may not have been for "racial purposes" seeing that Brazil does it to make the country look as profitable and upbeat as possible even with the country being billions in debt with most citizens under proverty.
the exclusionary built environment—the architecture of a place—functions as a form of regulation; it constrains the behavior of those who interact with it, often without their even realizing it.
They used this as a form of regulation. A synonym for regulation is control or a rule. The system was controlling who goes where and had restrictions.
Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods.
Seeing that the South is based off the premise of "Separate but Equal" its not surprising seeing the neighborhoods are bordered off from each other. The real surprise is that the infrastructure hasn't been changed/altered even after all these new laws and reforms... Separation brings mistrust and ignorance on both sides of the fence.
A number of localities have used physical barriers to exclude.
Ever since the last century, physical barriers were used to exclude and segregate the populations, Restaurants that accepted multiple demographic groups often separated the building with a wall to exclude a group
Homevoter Hypothesis—suggesting that homeowners are more likely than renters to vote and more likely to vote in ways that will protect their property investment—and our country’s long history of intentional discrimination and exclusion.
The difference between homeowners and renters becomes extremely apparent when it comes to voting to protect property and their exclusion to the norms of what is around to preserve their demographic preference.
Lior Jacob Strahilevitz examines “exclusionary amenities,” which are features of residential developments that are generally expensive and that only appeal to certain demographic groups.
He explains on how certain demographic groups and communities can, at often times, influence the architecture and residential developments that appeal specifically to them
These scholars use architectural concepts in an implicit acknowledgment that the actual physical architecture of asphalt and steel binds our actions.
This gives the assumption that when it comes to physical architecture and building, the area around as well as what we build with binds the actions and choices of what is built.
For example, one might think it a simple aesthetic design decision to create a park bench that is divided into three individual seats with armrests separating those seats.
Using something that specific as a Bunch being divided by three armrests separating the seats, it produces a really clear image of what they are explaining in preparation to form their argument in the later sentences.
Sabin Colloquium
With her using The Sabin Colloquium as a reference, It boosts her Ethos by giving her a credible source on the subject she is writing about.
Moses used his power as an architect to make it physically difficult for certain individuals to reach the places from which he desired to exclude them.
If the hill is steep enough, it might as well be a wall.
Exclusion through architecture should be subject to scrutiny that is equal to that afforded to other methods of exclusion by law.
This is difficult however, because you cannot always prove intent. It will boil down to one's words against another. This is why it is so hard to combat those in power, because the effects of their actions can be broad and varied. It's hard to say whether there was malicious intent.
She further suggests that the racial meaning of a place can allow those in charge, such as police officers, to determine who belongs in that place and who does not.
Norms can be just as powerful as laws when persecuting an indivuals
However, people tend to believe that the plan and structures of cities are created for purposes of efficiency or with the goal of furthering the general public interest, and they overlook the ways that design can exclude.
Efficiency for whom? Certainly not for the lower class or the general public.
Although legal scholars do not often write directly about architecture as regulation, some—especially law and geography scholars and critical race theorists—have confronted concepts like architecture, the built environment, municipal infrastructure, space, and place in the context of class and race.
This is frustrating because I don't understand how hard it is to see how a bridge or a sidewalk can connect people and how a lack of one might can divide, it might as well be a wall.
It is regulation. Consequently, it makes even more sense to apply the concept of regulation through architecture to the built environment than it does to apply it to the Internet or structuring decisions.
This reminds of the net neutrality controversy, allowing internet providers to charge a fee to let visitors of said websites to have faster speeds when visiting their sites. By doing this internet providers can control where people go on the internet, by controlling connivence and speed. This can be used to serve the agendas of these providers, and undermine smaller sites and business.
“regulation intended to influence acts by shaping, structuring, or reconfiguring the practical conditions or preconditions of acts.”
Probability is power. Exclusion does not need to be expressed as overtly as a bridge too low for the passing of buses to divide people. If you can control whats likely to happen, then what's the difference between in directly controlling what happens. Why the latter doesn't occur is because outrage would occur ensue.
Nicholas Blomley terms this “traffic logic”: the idea that planners and civil engineers prioritize the flow of pedestrians and traffic through a physical space, with a focus on civil engineering, rather than prioritizing equal access to a physical space for all, with a focus on civil rights
This is a major theme I see in our western capitalist country, efficiency over equality. It may not be particular to capitalist nations, but I feel it is very apparent.
At the most general level, it is not controversial among planning and geography scholars to assert that the built environment often is constructed in a way that furthers political goals.
Seeing that there is a general consensus among scholars of the effects architecture can have on our social behavior with one another and that it is still not recognized among lawmakers shows me that this is a willful ignorance used to serve personal agendas.
However, the built environment does serve to regulate human behavior and is an important form of extra-legal regulation.
Though it is not a spoken division people, it is a physical one that controls people's behavior through connivence.
nts wanted the fence to keep out crime and keep their property values up, and “there was a not insubstantial vocal segment of the Rosedale whose racist views were made readily apparent.”105 Another common ve
The residents of these wealthy neighborhoods, believed people of color would bring crime to the neighborhood.
a private developer constructed a six-foot-high wall—known as Eight Mile Wall—to separate an existing black neighborhood from a new white one that was to be constructed.93 Historically, t
The writer is an example of how historically white people were separated from people of colour.
place can allow those in charge, such as police officers, to determine who belongs in that place and who does not.65 Similarly, Step
This has been seen so many times in the media. People of color gunned down, because they were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.
one-way streets, the absence of sidewalks and crosswalks, the location of highways and transit stops, and even residential parking permit requirements can shape the demographics of a city and isolate a neighborhood from those surrounding it, often intentionally. Decisions about i
The writer depicts, how simple things such as landscape, can isolate people.
“[s]idewalks and bike paths are rare and do not connect to those in other communities inhabited by residents of lower social and racial status.”87
Staying on Georgia State campus I witness certain areas in Atlanta do not include bike lanes when you are not right next to a GSU building. This is problematic because the campus is so spread out that it is difficult tom maneuver when some streets have the lanes and the connecting one doesn't.
“One consequence was to limit access of racial minorities and low-income groups”
I think it is interesting how before the use of public transportation was seen as a burden and only for the poor; however, now it is seen as an convenience for all people of different social class and racial identity.
places have racial identities based on their history of or reputation for exclusion,
This is problematic because instead of helping these communities rebuild or be successful, they exclude the entire community from others because of history that may have not been any of the people living their faults. Or the person/ people have already been convicted of their crimes such as gang activity or theft, the rest of the community should not be judged.
Yet the bench may have been created this way to prevent people—often homeless people—from lying down and taking naps
I've never thought about this consciously; however, I see now why they would build benches with divided arm rest so the homeless people won't be stretched out on a local park bench or train car.
People used the law by passing ordinances saying that certain individuals could not access certain locations
Constraint: Law that prevents people from one social class from the other.
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities
Not allowing MARTA to expand shows how the suburban areas have an higher power dynamic than the cities. However, they made MARTA, so the wealthy can stay wealthy with their jobs in Atlanta, but the people in the city are not allowed an easy way to expand their resume.
Street grid layouts, one-way streets, the absence of sidewalks and crosswalks, and other design elements can shape the demographics of a city and isolate a neighborhood from those surrounding it. In this way, the exclusionary built environment—the architecture of a place—functions as a form of regulation; it constrains the behavior of those who interact with it, often without their even realizing it.
Schindler list another constraint of architecture preventing others from going from one place to another.
This is where the Schindler establishes her credit ability by stating her education and profession. Also, Schindler stating how this article received credible feedback is a great way for audience to identify the knowledge behind it.
The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals—often poor people and people of color—to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods.
Schindler starts the article by listing the constraints of the lower class and African Americans by the wealthy and Caucasian community.
ollins Cromley, “Introduction,
Can you find this?
First, potential challengers, courts, and lawmakers often fail to recognize architecture as a form of regulation at all, viewing it instead as functional, innocuous, and prepolitical. Second, even if decision makers and those who are excluded recognize architecture’s regulatory power, existing jurisprudence is insufficient to address its harms.
Though those who may fight against this form of control most likely do no see it as such, even if they did there are no laws in place to solve the problems caused by the regulation by architecture. If there was a way to change it, imagine how slow going the change would be, construction or deconstruction often takes months to years to be completed. That is not accounting for the time it takes for these things to be approved. So if architectural exclusion became more realized I wonder how they would go about fixing it.
During the time that he was appointed to a number of important state and local offices
Being appointed to a number of offices in the same general time frame often comes with larger amounts of power. You gain popularity and power through each office you are appointed to. That being said, it is likely that no would have challenged him even if they realized his intentions because of how much power he would have had.
And although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts of zoning ordinances and restrictive covenants, courts, legislatures, and most legal scholars have paid little attention to the use of less obvious exclusionary urban design tactics
I wonder why those in power are not educated regularly on the built environment and the impact it can have. Perhaps it really is not very well known, or perhaps these people do not care how it alters the way of life of some so long as they continue being able to live their standard way of life.
This hidden power suggests that lawmakers and judges should be especially diligent in analyzing the exclusionary impacts of architecture, but research demonstrates that they often give these impacts little to no consideration.
This is another example of why lawmakers should be regularly educated on the impact of build environments so that they would take more time in examining how architecture excludes people. If every law maker in the country had to be educated on this type of exclusion it would come to a point where there could be no ignoring it. I wonder if they do not analyze this form of exclusion because of the lack of education on the subject, or for more sinister reasons.
Such devices include physical barriers to access—low bridges, road closings, and the construction of walls—as well as the placement of transit stops, highway routes, one-way streets, and parking-by-permit-only requirements.
These forms of architecture are meant to encourage (in a negative aspect) certain people to stay in designated areas. For example, one would not want to walk to an area so far from a bus stop that they may end up missing they last bus. This would make that person stay in the general are of the bus instead of venturing so far out. An example being say there is a public bus system in a town and you have to walk 10 minutes to get to it. Then, it only stops in an area that is near a dollar general, but you would prefer to shop at Bilo because it has a better selection. The problem is that you would need to walk 20 plus minutes to get to Bilo and would then have to worry about weather, missing the bus, and carrying all of your groceries back to the bus. This is just one small example. Does anyone know of any example of the walls being built, other than those given in the text?
Moreover, as more low-income individuals move to the suburbs, they face continued difficulty accessing jobs in their communities due to the lack of transit options within suburban communities.
Also, as more people move to these areas the jobs that are available in the area often diminish. The few jobs that were available will all but vanish and because of how difficult it is to find transportation the poverty in the area will increase, further causing people to fight harder for transportation to not be sent to the area because of how "bad" it is.
Architectural regulation is powerful in part because it is unseen; it “allows government to shape our actions without our perceiving that our experience has been deliberately shaped.
This describes that the government and the system makes changes and creates regulations that benefit certain groups while limiting and restricting it for others.
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities
The "wealthy, most white residents" opposed to this because they're stereotyping minorities believing if public transportation systems were to be installed into their neighborhoods that it would lead to unwanted crime and violence when that's not the case. Most minorities are trying to get to their work places because they do not have their own means of transportation and rely on the public transits.
According to his biographer, Moses directed that these overpasses be built intentionally low so that buses could not pass under them.
This shows that a person in authority is limiting the transportation system needed for people to reach certain destinations.
Another common version of this phenomenon is one of the most obvious forms of architectural exclusion: the walls, gates, and guardhouses of gated communities.106
I understand why there are gated communities and walls because they don't want any trespassers of any kind not just for people of color. But the whole no transportation to get to those places is what unfair and shows how racism still exists.
through actions by their residents, their police forces, or their local elected officials—have created infrastructure and designed their built environs to restrict passage through and access to certain areas of the community.
These people who create infrastructure and environments to keep certain people out are afraid of change. They are afraid to become diverse. What's so wrong with change?
The author gives an example of the wide-spread attempt to keep low income people from entering certain neighborhoods by discussing developments of Atlanta's MARTA system. Rich people reject the plan to expand MARTA so that poor people cannot have access to rich areas. As a result, poor people are limited to job opportunities and other luxuries.
o walk or bike to another area, then, it might have to be along the shoulder of a busy road or on the road itself. Similarly, the ex
Now that I think of it, there weren't many sidewalks or bike paths where I grew up; Bikers along the road were a nuisance, and pedestrians had to walk in the grass and bushes or just not walk at all.
I think this really puts things in perspective in regards to just how childish people can be when it comes to racial discrimination. They literally used anything they could think of to keep "people of color" away from them.
Exclusionary zoning is a method whereby municipalities’ zoning regulations require large lot sizes, square-footage minimums for buildings, or occupancy restrictions that make property unaffordable to or impractical for use by poor people or those who live with large or extended families.2
This zoning tactic exist today. Certain neighborhoods do not allow occupants to build a house that is less than a stated square footage. Back then; however, stipulations would keep black people out of these neighborhoods. Today, black people are able to meet the guidelines and move in these neighborhoods. I was talking to an older person and he informed me that what white people do is move out of the neighborhood when black people move in.
Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment clearly states that the states cannot deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
In County Board of Arlington County v. Richards,190 the county had adopted a rule that restricted daytime street parking to residents with residential parking permits,191 excluding commuters who had previously parked on local streets.192 The Court held that such a scheme was permissible and did not violate the Equal Protection Clause, since it was purportedly enacted to reduce hazardous traffic conditions, air pollution, and noise, as well as to preserve property values and the safety of neighborhood children.19
In other words, the courts ruled in order to reduce air pollution and other environmental dangers, a community may restrict commuters from parking on their streets. Laws have a way of "fixing things up" to other motives.
Communities also rely on other confusion techniques to keep people out, or to make it hard for them to find their way around an area.
It is easy to get lost in Los Angeles. All the different freeways can confuse tourist. My mom and I got lost in LA trying to get food and gave upon the restaraunt after a hour looking for the right freeway and exits.
I-880 in Oakland
The streets in Oakland are raggedy with potholes and dips. But as you get closer to San Leandro which is the city over, the roads are much better with cleaner streets. And i used I-880 on a daily basis to go everywhere.
Throughout history, people have used varied methods to exclude undesirable individuals from places where they were not wanted
Canada also does this for their process of citizenship. To become a citizen of canada, you have to pay a large sum of money, and tell them why you would be a productive member of their society
Such devices include physical barriers to access—low bridges, road closings, and the construction of walls—as well as the placement of transit stops, highway routes, one-way streets, and parking-by-permit-only requirements.
This may just be my opinion, but when cops use road blocks and search everybody's cars before exits, it could be used as a tactic to keep all of the potential crime out of neighborhoods, and to keep potential law breakers from trying to go to that exit in the future.
This Article examines the sometimes subtle ways that the built environment has been used to keep certain segments of the population—typically poor people and people of color—separate from others.
This is especilly apparent in Atlanta's northern suburbs, and even in Augusta Georgia with their clear line dividing the poor "South Augusta" and the wealther "North Augusta"
Why have the Court, judges, and lawmakers—the entities usually tasked with crafting and enforcing antidiscrimination law—failed to find fault with these sorts of physical acts of exclusion?
I feel like it is not difficult to find fault with it, it just looks bad on them.
Homevoter Hypothesis—suggesting that homeowners are more likely than renters to vote and more likely to vote in ways that will protect their property investment—and our country’s long history of intentional discrimination and exclusion
The homevoter hypothesis supports the fact that voting zones are targeted to help a certain political party. For example, homeowner's precincts may favor the republican party. Homeowners are thought of as being middle to upper class people.
anecdotal evidence of the architect’s
More of an opinionated fact no type of real ground to the accusation. rhetoric at its finest.
seful[ly]” decided to route highways through the center of cities, often with the intent “to destroy low-income and especially black neighborhoods in an effort to reshape the physical and racial landscapes of the postwar American city.”153 Although this w
If you cut off these poor communities access to the outer city they can not grow and will stay in the same oppression and eventually die out.
We often experience our physical environment without giving its features much thought. For example, one might think it a simple aesthetic design decision to create a park bench that is divided into three individual seats with armrests separating those seats. Yet the bench may have been created this way to prevent people—often homeless people—from lying down and taking naps.27 Similarly, upon seeing a bridge, or a one-way street, or a street sign, many people tend
Not only is the physical environment designed to exclude certain people and behavior but it is design to accommodate behaviors. In a suburban park, benches may be made to accommodate a family of four because this is what a typical upper-class family looks like.
ses tools of exclusion such as racially restrictive covenants and exclusionary zoning, never does it men
I wonder if this is the same zoning the APD uses in Atlanta??
type of people they want to come to the mall.
Why would the mall want to exclude customers?
ing as a ‘neutral’ design.”54 Indeed, some c
Their isn't because no one has put forward the effort to try it.
transit stops
Public transport is commonly used by people of lower class. So they strategically place the transit stops to exclude the lower class from being in the same area as the people of higher class.
ionary suburbs are spatial entities; . . . access, exclusion, confinement . . . are spatial experiences.58 For example, Li
The projects are a prime example of this segregation.
rerouting traffic is to inhibit harmful behaviors tied to drugs and crime.
I think this is the same reason why Marta has not been moved up south because they don’t want people doing drugs and crime being in their neighborhood.
Local governments
Local governments would because people running the government do this for their own benefit. To have a place to live where only people of their rank live in. And to mold the traffic and people of color and lower class out of their way.
Municipalities also often use the most straightforward physical structures to exclude—walls and barriers.
I'm quite shocked to see that these practices are still being upheld as late as 2012. I would have thought that a forward thinking society would have resolved these glaring physical issues by now.
However, many communities lack sidewalks and crosswalks, making it difficult to cross the street or walk through a neighborhood. Sometimes this is intentional.86 For example, in his book detailing continuing racism and intentionally white communities in the United States, James Loewen describes architectural exclusion in some towns where “[s]idewalks and bike paths are rare and do not connect to those in other communities inhabited by residents of lower social and racial status.”87 If someone wanted to walk or bike to another area, then, it might have to be along the shoulder of a busy road or on the road itself.
Bike lanes are rarely seen. At least where I live I barely see any. When I do see them they are so short in width that if the bike were to accidently move slightly out of the lane, it would surely get hit by a coming car. And the area I live in there is like zero access to public transport so maybe that’s a reason for a lack of bike lanes. People who use these methods are transport are just not wanted in my area.
that sort of evidence is often not available.
That's why lawmakers have a hard time trying to prevent exclusionary tactics. Often there is no reliable source that accurately shows the intent of the developer. This creates legal issues when trying to accuse someone of social-bias
Throughout history, people have used varied methods to exclude undesirable individuals from places where they were not wanted. People used the law by passing ordinances saying that certain individuals could not access certain locations
Excluding poor people and blacks from places has been a practice for quite sometime. The tactics used are becoming more creative. I researched this topic and found that laws sometimes make certain areas favorable for political gain. In other words, voting precinct are zoned to favor a certain political party.
places have racial identities based on their history of or reputation for exclusion,
Georgia may be a prime example of this given the States history concerning slavery and the Confederacy.
hysically difficult
The measures he took to keep away people of color are beyond extreme. It’s sad. America has this reputation for being the “land of the free,” but then there are bridges being built to exclude people of a different skin color from coming to another piece of land.
libertarian paternalism.
An institution has the power to influence people and at the same time allow people to use their own judgement and make their own decisions
As one planning scholar acknowledged, “[r]ace is a ubiquitous reality that must be acknowledged . . . if [planners] do not want simply to be the facilitators of social exclusion and economic isolation.”42
Economic isolation in terms of living spaces is much more complex than just being a by product of architectural design. Historical suppression of certain races and basic economic principles in a capitalist system create this situation.
This Article examines the sometimes subtle ways that the built environment has been used to keep certain segments of the population—typically poor people and people of color—separate from others. Further, it considers the ways in which the law views and treats the exclusionary effects of these seemingly innocuous features of the built environment—which the Article terms “architectural exclusion”—as compared to more traditional and more obvious exclusionary practices. Although exclusion is perhaps the most important stick in the bundle of property rights, and although certain forms of exclusion can have beneficial results,18 this Article focuses on forms of exclusion that result in discriminatory treatment of those who are excluded. This Article builds on Lawrence Lessig’s regulatory theory, which asserts that behavior may be regulated or constrained, in part, by “architecture.”19 Lessig broadly defined architecture as “the physical world as we find it, even if ‘as we find it’ is simply how it has already been made.”20 The Article also employs the term “architecture” quite broadly to encompass civil engineering, city planning, urban design, and transit routing. The decisions of those who work in these varied fields result in infrastructure that shapes the built environment. The resulting infrastructure is included in this broad definition of architecture and functions as a form of regulation through architecture.21
The center of this article is Lawrence Lessig's theory. His theory says that architecture shapes behavior. In other words what you build has an impact on how people react to those surroundings. Architecture shapes the environment and the people in it. Thus, sometimes limiting access. Architecture includes transportation, city development, zoning, and urban design.
As one planning scholar acknowledged, “[r]ace is a ubiquitous reality that must be acknowledged . . . if [planners] do not want simply to be the facilitators of social exclusion and economic isolation.”42
Sometimes architectural planning does create social division BUT from my observations it seems that people choose to be racially divided.
control human behavior or hinder access
without the humans having any knowledge of this being done to them. This is physiological torture. Excluding people intentionally and permanently with them thinking and wondering why this is happening to them. Why they can't gain access to certain places.
exclusionary urban design tactics.
This seems to be the focus of the paper. How does the law make it possible for these urban design issues to become exclusionary?
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities.7
I don't know how credible this claim is. In this sentence the author seems to be trying interpret the white peoples opinions in a negative light. I'm not supporting racial discrimination. Rather I am suggesting that there are probably real concerns that the white citizens have (e.i a quite neighborhood, traffic, etc.) that shape their opinions.
At the request of white residents, in 1974 the city of Memphis closed off a street that connected an all-white neighborhood to a primarily black one.9 Supporters of this measure argued that it would ostensibly reduce traffic and noise, in addition to promoting safety.10 The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to this action, stating that the road closure was just a “routine burden of citizenship” and a “slight inconvenience.”11 Justice Marshall dissented, acknowledging that this inconvenience carried a “powerful symbolic message.”12 He wrote, “The picture that emerges from a more careful review of the record is one of a white community, disgruntled over sharing its street with Negroes, taking legal measures to keep out the ‘undesirable traffic,’ and of a city, heedless of the harm to its Negro citizens, acquiescing in the plan.”13 He believed that through this action, the city was sending a clear message to its black residents,14 and he could not understand why the Court could not see that message.
Built environments date beyond the 1970's and court rulings have been necessary. In Memphis, a group of dissatisfied white people fought to keep their neighborhood from uniting with a black neighborhood. The courts ruled against the petition stating that the plan would slow down the flow of traffic. According to Justice Marshall the ruling was correct but the reasoning behind the ruling was not correct.
Even though America is seen as the beacon of human progress the country still suffers from the socio-economic and racial issues originating from its past.
Walled ghettos are a well-known example of physical segregation.90 Jewish people in Europe were made to live in separate, walled areas, as were Arab and European traders in China.
Keeping people behind walls and trapping them in and environment where it is impossible for them to grow is unfair. They should be able to integrate with other people so that there will be fair opportunities. Excluding a group doesn't help the situations they are in.
To be clear, officials may understand that an architectural decision could have an exclusionary effect—they might even intend that result—but they generally do not see their decisions as a form of regulation that should be analyzed and patrolled in the same way that a law with the same effect would be.
How could one regulate this? Because it is such a powerful and potentially harmful tool, it should be analyzed and patrolled, but it's impossible to argue knowledge of intent. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's near-impossible to regulate.
Moses’s biographer suggests that his decision to favor upper- and middle-class white people who owned cars at the expense of the poor and African-Americans was due to his “social-class bias and racial prejudice.”
Certain environments are created and set up certain ways to where it is only geared towards certain groups of people only. Those who are not intended to live in these areas will eventually be excluded . He wanted to exclude people in a way that not every one would realize.
architecture can be, and is, used to exclude.
Well after reading this article who would't agree upon this controversy. I never really thought about it before but now it's so clear. Architecture which is hard, built on concrete, hard to move, set in stone; its the easiest way to exclude people without people knowing about it.
Miami intentionally located I-95 so that it would cut through Overtown, an inner-city black community.161 Although it had previously been known as “the Harlem of the South,” Overtown became “an urban wasteland dominated by the physical presence of the expressway.”
This is similar to fractional gerrymandering, where the base is split, Gerrymandering could very well have been the reason for the highway's relocation, as it would serve as a convenient border between districts.
These architectural decisions create architectural constraints: features of the built environment that function to control human behavior or hinder access—the embodiment of architectural exclusion.
In certain environments larger houses are built and are eventually turned into gated communities. Since these houses are bigger and better they cost a lot more and while some people can afford it others can not. This is intended to exclude certain groups of people and those who have a lot less, hindering them access to cleaner and safer neighborhoods.
Because there are a number of benefits to living near a transit stop,122 the Homevoter Hypothesis suggests that homeowners will readily lobby for them.
I thought that home owners would be opposed to being near a transit station, like the MARTA rails, because of the increase in noise pollution. Historically speaking property values are lower near transit stations than in surrounding areas, which might be the point she is trying to make.
monumental structures of concrete and steel embody a systematic social inequality, a way of engineering relationships among people that, after a time, becomes just another part of the landscape
They are made of concrete so that there is no way to escape it. It is set in stone and its what it will be and stay forever. Concrete is hard and heavy; it is used to built structures dividing the people with no way out of it.
Robert Moses was known as the “Master Builder” of New York.1 During the time that he was appointed to a number of important state and local offices,2 he shaped much of New York’s infrastructure, including a number of “low-hanging overpasses” on the Long Island parkways that led to Jones Beach.3 According to his biographer, Moses directed that these overpasses be built intentionally low so that buses could not pass under them.4 This design decision meant that many people of color and poor people, who most often relied on public transportation, lacked access to the lauded public park at Jones Beach.5
Robert Moses' blueprints illustrated the construction of bridges that prohibited black people from passing under bridges. These constructions purposefully did not allow black people to visit public parks at Jones Beach in New York.
Throughout history, people have used varied methods to exclude undesirable individuals from places where they were not wanted
Like the Jim Crow Laws were passes to make it "separate but equal," but in reality they were a way to keep the people of color away from the white people giving them no equality at all. The Jim Crow laws made matter worst in fact.
That Paris has large boulevards limits the ability of revolutionaries to protest. That the Constitutional Court in Germany is in Karlsruhe, while the capital is in Berlin, limits the influence of one branch of government over the other. These constraints function in a way that shapes behavior. In this way, they too regulate.50
The way Infrastructure is built and where it is placed can control the way people think and what their actions will be. It puts restraints on certain groups of people causing them to act in a way that was intended for them.
If someone wanted to walk or bike to another area, then, it might have to be along the shoulder of a busy road or on the road itself.
Sharing the road with bikers is uncomfortable because you never know when you might need to swerve to avoid an accident and there happens to be a biker there and possibly crash into the biker.
Social norms encouraged some to threaten undesirable persons with violence if they were to enter or remain in certain spaces.
Why do people always look at violence as answer?
In some neighborhoods, people can park on the street only if they live in the neighborhood and have a residential parking permit or are given a guest permit by a resident.
In my opinion, I do not see this a segregation. I see this more as respect for the resident of that neighborhood. That resident is paying to live there and we know that anyone with money can buy a house wherever they want. As long as you have money, people won’t pay much attention to your race.
It was not illegal to tear apart poor neighborhoods at the time that urban renewal was in full swing, and the resultant features of the built environment are now hard to change
Just because something is not illegal does not mean that it is correct.
Research shows that the opposition to transit is often motivated by the desire to block access by certain “undesirable” people who ride transit (for example, people of color and the poor).
We have seen segregation on public transportation for a long time now but does it still continue today? It continues today because older generations still have the same point of view that they did years ago and they pass this point of view to the new generations.
The strategy, according to police, was that “buyers would fear ‘driving all over looped streets, stopping and turning around, trying to find drugs with the possibility of having their nice cars, their jewelry, their money ripped off as they look.’”
Stereotypes are imbedded into people’s head so much that we believe them. However, we all know that they are not true. Just because a neighborhood has some criminals living there does not meant that every single person that is living there is a criminal. Take for example police officers. As we all know, they are some officers that have acted wrong in the past and because of this, people hate police officers now. We know that all police officers do not act in a wrong way, but just for a small number, we misjudge the rest of them.
Although these walls are generally put in place by private developers to keep out those whom they do not want to access their communities, local governments have the power to prohibit these barriers
It is no secret that the private owners are wealthy people. However, that is not the problem. The problem is that the government has the power to stop it, yet they allow it to continue. Just because a person is wealthy does not mean that they should be powerful; sadly, this is the world that we live in.
Historically, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) provided financing for a new development project only if the neighborhood was sufficiently residential and racially segregated.94 In the case of the Eight Mile Wall, the FHA would not finance the new housing project unless the wall was constructed because the FHA believed that the proposed new development was too close to an existing black one.95
The level of racism was so high during this time and it still is today that it amazes me that really important corporations such as the FHA would support segregation in such a way.
Moses set forth specifications for bridge overpasses on Long Island, which were designed to hang low so that the twelve-foot tall buses in use at the time could not fit under them.81 “One consequence was to limit access of racial minorities and low-income groups”—who often used public transit—”to Jones Beach, Moses’s widely acclaimed public park.
The fact that people would actually take their time to design and build bridges with these specifications and purposes amazes me. But then again, hate for someone can be so big and common that I just do not know what to expect anymore.
By including these features in a common interest community, a developer can deter unwanted potential residents—generally poor people and people of color—from buying homes in that development
This issue is not common only with home buying, it is common in all aspects of buying. You can see this issue in clothes shopping, technology shopping, automobile shopping, and even food shopping. The higher quality goods will always be higher than those of less quality because the people behind those goods aim at a select market where people of color are supposedly not present.
That a highway divides two neighborhoods limits the extent to which the neighborhoods integrate. That a town has a square, easily accessible with a diversity of shops, increases the integration of residents in that town
I never really paid attention to why cities or towns are built the way that they are until now. If the opportunity for integration in a town or city is taken away by architecture, then no one will truly do anything to integrate people or communities. However, if cities and towns are designed in a way were a variety of people can interact, then the citizens will take initiative in integrating because it is easier for them thanks to the way their town or city is designed.
43 They tend to make decisions that focus on urban infrastructure needs without considering the impact that such decisions might have on citizens.
This is a problem that is common in our present society. Big companies are always look for their benefits and they don’t care what they have to do or who they have to harm in order to achieve their goal. This is plain unfair to the people who do not have a voice in these type of situations.
However, a number of social scientists and planning scholars have argued that “monumental structures of concrete and steel embody a systematic social inequality, a way of engineering relationships among people that, after a time, becomes just another part of the landscape.”
In my opinion, I do not see this a symbol of discrimination. I have worked in construction before and the construction use the material that is best for that particular job. If the material usage was a symbol of discrimination, then experts would have to argue that leather shoes and canvas shoes embody a systematic social inequality.
This design decision meant that many people of color and poor people, who most often relied on public transportation, lacked access to the lauded public park at Jones Beach.5
Who would've ever thought that the height of a bridge held that much significance. The height of the bridge keeps public transportation such as buses from passing underneath. Finding ways to keep Blacks from accessing certain environments is most definitely wrong and puts them at a disadvantage because it restricts them from many opportunities.
This design decision meant that many people of color and poor people, who most often relied on public transportation, lacked access to the lauded public park at Jones Beach.5
Who would've ever thought that the height of a bridge held that much significance. The height of the bridge keeps public transportation such as buses from passing underneath. Finding ways to keep Blacks from accessing certain environments is most definitely wrong and puts them at a disadvantage because it restricts them from many opportunities.
n some communities, the purpose of rerouting traffic is to inhibit harmful behaviors tied to drugs and crime. Concrete barriers were put in place near the highways of Bridgeport, Connecticut, to block quick access into the city by those who wanted to buy drugs
That's like saying "lets build a vacuum chamber, because drug dealers breathe oxygen!"
Many would also agree that architecture can be, and is, used to exclude.
I totally agree with this statement, but on the other hand other people would disagree because they would believe thats just how the architecture was design.
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to this action, stating that the road closure was just a “routine burden of citizenship” and a “slight inconvenience.”
I don't think anything "slight" and "routine" would've required a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. It was pretty clear that this was an act of racism; the Court, the white community and the black community all knew. Most racists don't want to admit that they're racist. The victims were the only ones who would've called this for what it was: racism and segregation.
We often experience our physical environment without giving its features much thought
I never thought the government would do something so small like designing a small bench just so that the homeless people could not have comfortable place to sleep.
“[s]idewalks and bike paths are rare and do not connect to those in other communities inhabited by residents of lower social and racial status.”87 If someone wanted to walk or bike to another area, then, it might have to be along the shoulder of a busy road or on the road itself.
I never realized this before, but my home in the suburbs fits this description perfectly, it is in what used t be a predominately wealthy, white area, and I have often been confused about the lack of sidewalks. There are no sidewalks anywhere, even though the road outside of the subdivisions is known for vehicle collisions, people still walk along the sides of the road when walking their dogs or kids, and looking very foolish.
Those individuals therefore have a hard time reaching areas that are underserved by transit
I love the wording for this because it embodies what the areas are trying to achieve and also name-calling these hard-to-reach, undeserving areas.
Further, transit siting and infrastructure decisions are often implemented with the intention of making it more difficult for certain groups of people to access certain parts of the community.119
Typically I see more public transit stops near the low-income neighborhoods and apartment complexes, especially in the suburbs. Even when discussing the housing market and talking about where we would live if we could, my friends and I recognize certain neighborhoods to be better to live in because it's a "rich neighborhood" but we'd need a car because public transit it almost non-existent. People living in wealthier neighborhoods can typically afford a decent car so they wouldn't need to use public transit.
Social norms encouraged some to threaten undesirable persons with violence if they were to enter or remain in certain spaces.
These acts of violence does not solve anything because to this present day racism still occurs in America.
By including these features in a common interest community, a developer can deter unwanted potential residents—generally poor people and people of color—from buying homes in that development
So this was like preemptive, architectural, redlining, where the banks would purposefully refuse loans to low income households?
Throughout history, people have used varied methods to exclude undesirable individuals from places where they were not wanted
In the 1950s white people would protest and create huge signs in front of their businesses to keep color people away from them.
However, people tend to believe that the plan and structures of cities are created for purposes of efficiency or with the goal of furthering the general public interest, and they overlook the ways that design can exclude.62
Again, like the separated park benches, we assume the best and that the reason behind the design didn't have exclusionary intent. Is it because as a more fortunate individual, I've never been conditioned to be suspicious of the way things are? Also, it seems like benches a couple decades back and benches now are very different. The park benches I remember as a child didn't have individually separated armrests but now when I walk around, I notice it's a more common design. I only assumed it was a design that helped people keep to their personal spaces.
These architectural decisions create architectural constraints: features of the built environment that function to control human behavior or hinder access—the embodiment of architectural exclusion.
When I go shopping for clothes or for food, it's always the smaller, less costly trinkets that are right by the register or where people wait in line. It's kind of crazy how businesses try to squeeze every penny out of you without trying to insult you and at the same time it makes sense because they are a business with a goal to increase profit. So, what's the underlying goal of the government that approves of certain architectural designs within the city?
“monumental structures of concrete and steel embody a systematic social inequality, a way of engineering relationships among people that, after a time, becomes just another part of the landscape.
I recall that on my one-month stay in Korea, I toured the Seoorung Royal Tombs and I noticed that the walkways had a higher, wider level next to the lower much narrower level. I deduced that the design was intentional because of its consistency. I asked my aunt why and she replied that the wider walkway was used by the kings' servants and the narrower walkway was sized to be used by only the king. Even something as simple as a sidewalk embodied a distinct social difference.
Yet the bench may have been created this way to prevent people—often homeless people—from lying down and taking naps
I think growing up with a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food on the table have seriously blinded me to how little I think about these details. Until recently, I hadn't considered how difficult it could be to find a place to rest your head when you have nowhere to go. I've been conditioned to think that the separated park bench is for aesthetic and practical purposes than more insidious reasons.
Throughout history, people have used varied methods to exclude undesirable individuals from places where they were not wanted
Historical evidence can definitely back this statement. Individuals deemed undesirable could often be identified based on their relative physical location. Examples in history include the "barbaric" Mongolians on the other side the Great Wall of China, the French arrondissements and the white plantation owners' extravagant homes with the slaves in separate living quarters to name just a few.
Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones.
This reminds of what Trump is trying to do to Mexico.
Decisions about infrastructure shape more than just the physical city; those decisions also influence the way that residents and visitors experience the city.17
This reminds me of a brief rumour I'd heard about Hurt Park's changes in the previous year. A few of my friends had spoken about how sitting areas were being replaced by flowers under the premises of beautifying the area but really were trying to deter the homeless from resting in the area.
While these concepts are foundational to planners and architects, only a small number of legal scholars—including Lessig—have begun to consider the built environment’s regulatory role
It would seem that the affects of the built environment are still not widely known or understood. Those in places of power need to be able to better see what the built environment can do to certain people.
At the request of white residents, in 1974 the city of Memphis closed off a street that connected an all-white neighborhood to a primarily black one
Does anyone know of any instance of this happening around this area of Atlanta? Coming from a small town the rich neighborhoods are often separated from the poor ones by miles and miles and because many of the poor do not have cars they would have no reason to ever have a street closed off.
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities
My roommate was just commenting on how difficult it is for her to get to work because she does not have a car. She has to use the bus and train and walk. Even now built environments often restrict the lower middle class and poor.
This design decision meant that many people of color and poor people, who most often relied on public transportation, lacked access to the lauded public park at Jones Beach.5
I think Moses intentionally built a bridge so low leading to a park at a beach because in most places the walk to the beach is not a short one and during the heat of the summer one would be even more discouraged to go if the only choice they had was to walk because a bus could not drive under the bridge.
he shaped much of New York’s infrastructure, including a number of “low-hanging overpasses” on the Long Island parkways that led to Jones Beach.3 According to his biographer, Moses directed that these overpasses be built intentionally low so that buses could not pass under them
Moses used his power in a way that may not have been noticeable to the public or many people in places of power because it is such an ingenious way to exert control over certain people. Though his biographer knew why he built overpasses low, those who approved these building ordinances may not have know this or at the very least realized his reason behind building. Also, depending on the time this took place there may not have been such strict building codes as those that are in place today.
the exclusionary built environment—the architecture of a place—functions as a form of regulation; it constrains the behavior of those who interact with it, often without their even realizing it.
The design of the built environment restricts what those in the environment can do based on where in they live. It is meant to control who goes where, in this case, often without those who are being controlled noticing the means of their control.
Regulation through architecture is just as powerful as law, but it is less explicit, less identifiable, and less familiar to courts, legislators, and the general public.
I have never even thought about architecture affecting where I go but as I'm reading I'm amazed and I want to do something about it.
Why have the Court, judges, and lawmakers—the entities usually tasked with crafting and enforcing antidiscrimination law—failed to find fault with these sorts of physical acts of exclusion? The most straightforward reason is that it is difficult to show the necessary intent to discriminate, especially in situations involving land use and the built environment
They could be just like Moses a racist supremacist who doesn't care about people of color or they want people of color to be stuck in these societal bubble that they have people of color in.
municipalities
noun a city or town that has local government.
If someone wanted to walk or bike to another area, then, it might have to be along the shoulder of a busy road or on the road itself.
Driving with bikers on a busy road is equally unpleasant for both the biker and driver
In the case of the cafeteria, the architectural constraint is that it is physically difficult to reach or see the junk food, and thus it is harder to access.
Similar techniques are advised in weight loss programs, such as moving something to another room to lessen the temptation and increase the required effort to obtain it
can be, and is, used to exclude
While I feel this can in certain scenarios be found true, the majority of the time modern architecture is not designed with such motives
However, a number of social scientists and planning scholars have argued
People have a tendency to over-analyze everything and find meaning where none was intended
ne-way street
I feel that one way streets are often the result of poor long term planning that results in too little space for a proper road
And cities were constructed in ways—including by erecting physical barriers—that made it very difficult for people from one side of town to access the other side
Reminds me of the Berlin Wall separating East and West Germany
which, if the intent were clear, would not be permissible today
I pose the question, does this type of discrimination go on still and we turn the other cheek?
Instead of garnering support to pass a law banning poor people or people of color from the places in which he did not want them
He wanted to use a subliminal approach to be discriminate rather than be out right with it.
Moses’s biographer suggests that his decision to favor upper- and middle-class white people who owned cars at the expense of the poor and African-Americans was due to his “social-class bias and racial prejudice.”83
simply being put he was a person who discriminated on poor people and African Americans.He wanted people of similar statue to be together and not intertwine with others.
paradigmatic
meaning "a prime example or model of something."
Yet the bench may have been created this way to prevent people—often homeless people—from lying down and taking naps.
Why won't the government build more shelters and enrichment programs to help the homeless out and clean the streets? it shows how much the city, state, and government puts into thought about how they feel about the less fortune.
The first two methods of discrimination have received sustained attention from legal scholars; the third form, which I refer to as architecture, has not. This Part departs from tradition by focusing on architecture instead of ordinances and social norms.
Their is still a subliminal way the government goes about hiding racism and segregation . The architecture of building cities is a way we can still be segregated with out the government having to face discrimination claims.
prioritize the flow of pedestrians and traffic through a physical space, with a focus on civil engineering, rather than prioritizing equal access to a physical space for all, with a focus on civil rights
Although both efficiency and civil liberties should both be held in high esteem, it is a bit harsh to blame planners for failing to see the consequences of their action when they were just trying to increase the efficiency in a system. Which brings up the question, is it discrimination when its completely unintentional? Well, since the broad definition of discrimination is the favor of or treatment towards a particular group or class, I would say that yes, it is discrimination, and people should be held responsible.
as the Supreme Court’s decision in Berman v. Parker established, clearing “blight” is an acceptable use of the eminent domain power
This law was further upheld in 2005 when the City of New London, CT, used eminent domain to transfer land held by one private citizen to another private citizen, a developer. The ground for upholding were that it was putting the land to better use (and also to generate higher tax revenue for the City of New London.)
“monumental structures of concrete and steel embody a systematic social inequality, a way of engineering relationships among people that, after a time, becomes just another part of the landscape
It seems so simple now that she points it out, its literally social psychology. The placement and posture of an individual is used to indicate their status and power in a culture, that's why kings sat on thrones above the people, (that and the illusion of divine rights), to demonstrate their power. The same thing was being done with architecture, and I just never realized it. Wow.
These architectural features serve to keep out those who are not expressly allowed in.10
My brother and his wife live in a gated community outside of Hilton Head, SC. Immaculate lawns, million dollar houses, golf course, beautiful but isolated. When I visited I did not see any minorities. Both my brother and his wife moved from Los Angeles "to get away from the crime".
One consequence was to limit access of racial minorities and low-income groups”—who often used public transit—”to Jones Beach, Moses’s widely acclaimed public park
I grew up on Long Island, close to Jones Beach and went under these bridges many times. They are distinctive and seen all over NY state. I thought the reason they were low was that they were on parkways which restricts commercial traffic (trucks and apparently buses). Never knew there was a more sinister reason they were low.
This Article examines the sometimes subtle ways that the built environment has been used to keep certain segments of the population—typically poor people and people of color—separate from others. Further, it considers the ways in which the law views and treats the exclusionary effects of these seemingly innocuous features of the built environment—which the Article terms “architectural exclusion”—as compared to more traditional and more obvious exclusionary practices. Although exclusion is perhaps the most important stick in the bundle of property rights, and although certain forms of exclusion can have beneficial results,18 this Article focuses on forms of exclusion that result in discriminatory treatment of those who are excluded. This Article builds on Lawrence Lessig’s regulatory theory, which asserts that behavior may be regulated or constrained, in part, by “architecture.”19 Lessig broadly defined architecture as “the physical world as we find it, even if ‘as we find it’ is simply how it has already been made.”20 The Article also employs the term “architecture” quite broadly to encompass civil engineering, city planning, urban design, and transit routing. The decisions of those who work in these varied fields result in infrastructure that shapes the built environment. The resulting infrastructure is included in this broad definition of architecture and functions as a form of regulation through architecture.21
This seems to be the "thesis" paragraph, and the official start to the paper, which means that the previous paragraphs were background information to keep in mind while reading the text, or examples of exclusionary built environment. I really like this arrangement I had mistakenly assumed that the article itself started after the abstract, and the intro was the first paragraph
Similarly, Stephen Clowney has addressed the way in which landscapes, parks, and statues create a narrative that often marginalizes African Americans.6
For those who have not seen the Civil Rights Museum in Centennial Park, I highly recommend you go. It is well done and thought provoking.
At the request of white residents, in 1974 the city of Memphis closed off a street that connected an all-white neighborhood to a primarily black one.9 Supporters of this measure argued that it would ostensibly reduce traffic and noise, in addition to promoting safety.
This is horrible. Not only did the city close of a street upon request but the arguments they used to justify themselves were just wrong, closing off the street may reduce traffic there, sure, but every other road would have to suffer increased burdens. And what about the people who used that specific road to get to work, that isn't "burden of citizenship" that's outright discrimination.
t
Another example of a tool to force segregation - in this case under representation in congress - is gerrymandering. Georgia voters are approximately 50% democrats but the GA state legislature is almost 76% republicans. Many have attributed to redistricting by the GOP legislature in 2012.
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities.
I have often wondered why MARTA doesn't go farther, South, well now I know, although it seems to me that most individuals now days use MARTA to get to work at Metro Atlanta from their homes in homes in the suburbs. Perhaps time has passed since the publication of the research she uses here, or perhaps I am missing a larger trend.
infrastructure
infrastructure: the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities needed for the operation of society or enterprise.
For example, the concrete barriers and bollards that exist throughout the streets of Berkeley, California, were installed to calm traffic;110 however, the barriers do this by preventing people from driving down the streets on which they are placed.
When I use to drive to Berkeley, I would get frustrated with all the barriers, one way streets, and limited parking.And there would still be traffic around 4pm-6pm during the week.
libertarian paternalism
It is where an institution can affect human behavior but still allow people to make their own decisions.
One reason that restrictive covenants and zoning for exclusion were so common is that they were preceded by a long history of norms in support of segregation in the United States2
I hope one day the "norm" isn't accepting architecture and transportive services that served as the foundation of historical segregation. I hope one day we can all move on and be more progressive in eliminating architecture that reminds us of our frightening past.
The bottom line seems to be that the Supreme Court has been fairly active and responsive in striking down laws that create “formal racial barriers”—racial zoning, racially restrictive covenants, Jim Crow laws requiring physical separation in public places266—but not so when considering other “less obvious forms of discrimination”—including (to some extent) exclusionary zoning and architectural exclusion.
This paragraph alone is enough to make an individual super angry about past architectural decisions, and angry over the fact that the truth is just now being heard by me and I'm certain many others.
nother method of exclusion involves the creation and use of one-way streets. These streets function to funnel traffic away from certain areas and into others.173 There are sometimes health- and safety-based reasons for the creation of one-way streets, including traffic-calming and pedestrian safety
I didn't even think about one way streets being a means of exclusion, I thought about it as just a way to handle traffic. Living in Atlanta, though, this article has caused me to make some shocking connections. I wonder what would happen if one-way streets in Atlanta were changed?
This was the scenario faced by Cynthia Wiggins, a seventeen-year-old woman who was hit and killed by a dump truck while she was attempting to cross a seven-lane highway to get to the mall where she worked.
This is so sad. It makes me question why changes weren't immediately dynamic.
We often experience our physical environment without giving its features much thought
we never gave the features much thought because that's something we think the government can never be capable of doing. Like we know the government is bad and corrupt and whatnot, but this is something we don't expect them to do because this just takes it to another level of discrimination.
Communities also engage in architectural exclusion in the way they design and place public transit and transportation infrastructure. The siting of bus stops and subway stations changes the built environment
It still continues to disturb me that bus stops and transportation services are manipulated strategically. I'll definitely be more aware while I'm living here in Atlanta.
And although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts of zoning ordinances and restrictive covenants, courts, legislatures, and most legal scholars have paid little attention to the use of less obvious exclusionary urban design tactic
Why haven't new forms of architecture replaced the old? Why do we continue to ignore the issues in today's seemingly "progressing" infrastructures? Why don't we fully educate/ go into further detail of the extent of discrimination that took place? I'm just now learning about some of these forms of discrimination and it disheartens me greatly.
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to this action, stating that the road closure was just a “routine burden of citizenship” and a “slight inconvenience.
It frightens me to know that the Justice System attempted to cover up the true motives to closing the road down. It makes me wonder what other frightening things the government has tried to hide.
Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts of racially restrictive covenants and zoning ordinances, most legal scholars, courts, and legislatures have given little attention to the use of these less obvious exclusionary urban design tactics. Street grid layouts, one-way streets, the absence of sidewalks and crosswalks, and other design elements can shape the demographics of a city and isolate a neighborhood from those surrounding it. In this way, the exclusionary built environment—the architecture of a place—functions as a form of regulation
The law recognizes that built environments are constructed to limit access to different places for certain social classes. However, the law does little to address the barriers that are being built. Instead, the law sees exclusionary built environments as being necessary.
Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities.
Until now, I didn't even realize the extent of discrimination in MARTA's history. I'm a bit shocked that I didn't put the pieces together, but I've always wondered why MARTA, with its may benefits, hasn't been expanded.
During the time that he was appointed to a number of important state and local offices,
I actually would like to know exactly what time this Robert Moses curated this infrastructure to get a better idea of the exact history that ties along with this discrimination. You read about segregation in history textbooks, but often aren't given details of discrimination to this extent.
VOLUME 124 2014
Built environments are constructed to separate social classes. For example, a bridge serves as an avenue to get to the other side. If the bridge is built low, the bridge keeps a bus from traveling under it. However, there is still means to crossing over the bridge. This access is given to certain people. Thus, a separation barrier exist. A separation barrier limits movement for a certain class of people.
Architectural regulation is powerful in part because it is unseen; it “allows government to shape our actions without our perceiving that our experience has been deliberately shaped.
This Article, however, suggests an additional reason—specifically, that those entities often fail to recognize urban design as a form of regulation at all.
antidiscrimination law—
anti-discrimination law: refers to the law of all people should be treated equally. Some countries mandate that in employment.
Social norms encouraged some to threaten undesirable persons with violence if they were to enter or remain in certain spaces.
When African-Americans would protest and do sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, some white people would spit and curse at them or even beat them. http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/feb-1-1960-black-students-and-the-greensboro-sit-in/?_r=0
powerful symbolic message.”
"powerful symbolic message'- The African American community took this as a act of racism.
At the request of white residents, in 1974 the city of Memphis closed off a street that connected an all-white neighborhood to a primarily black one.9 Supporters of this measure argued that it would ostensibly reduce traffic and noise, in addition to promoting safety
Is there a good reason for this though? Could they have evidence to back up why they don't want black people in there living environment?
Although the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area is known for its car-centric, sprawling development patterns, it has a subway system: the Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority (MARTA).6 Wealthy, mostly white residents of the northern Atlanta suburbs have vocally opposed efforts to expand MARTA into their neighborhoods for the reason that doing so would give people of color easy access to suburban communities.7 The lack of public-transit connections to areas north of the city makes it difficult for those who rely on transit—primarily the poor and people of color—to access job opportunities located in those suburbs.8 ***
They have made it to where some counties that don't approve of MARTA can still accommodate people who need to go in certain counties, such as the CCT, which stands for Cobb County Transit.
he shaped much of New York’s infrastructure, including a number of “low-hanging overpasses” on the Long Island parkways that led to Jones Beach.3 According to his biographer, Moses directed that these overpasses be built intentionally low so that buses could not pass under them.
This goes back to the explanation earlier in the text about why the bridges were built so low , which was to keep colored people from entering certain places.
Sabin Colloquium
Sabin Colloquium- innovative environmental law scholars
First, potential challengers, courts, and lawmakers often fail to recognize architecture as a form of regulation at all, viewing it instead as functional, innocuous, and prepolitical.
This is where they talk about what they can face if the lawmakers find out the "real reason" of the form of regulation towards a different race.
The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals—often poor people and people of color—to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods.
The opening of the text is sharing reasons why different architectures are built the way they are and it is similar to controversy in Atlanta with Cobb County not wanting MARTA to come to in their county.
This Article examines the sometimes subtle ways that the built environment has been used to keep certain segments of the population—typically poor people and people of color—separate from others.
The article How We Built the Ghettos by Jamelle Bouie breaks down ways that low income black citizens can be grouped and put in unsafe and more crowded areas. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/13/how-we-built-the-ghettos.html,
and he could not understand why the Court could not see that message.
The Court probably did see the message, many of the people in the system might have even agreed to segregation or inequality. Ignoring the obvious signs is a way of agreeing to the injustice. Not everyone with political power are unbiased or fair.
Supporters of this measure argued that it would ostensibly reduce traffic and noise, in addition to promoting safety.
It is basically a form of covert racism by using excuses to keep minorities away from the all white neighorhood. They are trying to hide their fear of non-white citizens.
make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods.
Like redlining in real estate where lower class individuals are denied the opportunity to live in middle or upper class communities. Many times they are not even shown the neighborhoods that are around a "higher" class because of their financial status.
Decisions about infrastructure shape more than just the physical city; those decisions also influence the way that residents and visitors experience the city.17
I believe this to be true. If a person has never seen the bright side of the city or the good in the city they can only tell someone how awful it is.
paradigmatic
Did not know the definition of this word. Paradigmatic: adj. Something that is ideal or standard.
abstract. The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals—often poor people and people of color—to access certain places.
Rhetorical situation of this article: April of 2015, published in a scholarly journal. Audience is most likely people interested in academics, particularly in law or urban planning. The author is a Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law. The message is to expose the injustices brought about in the "built environment" by architectural exclusion.
Although exclusion is perhaps the most important stick in the bundle of property rights, and although certain forms of exclusion can have beneficial results,18 this Article focuses on forms of exclusion that result in discriminatory treatment of those who are excluded.
Major road projects are typically voted upon by people in the community, are the people from lower-income areas not properly represented?
Although the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area is known for its car-centric, sprawling development patterns, it has a subway system: the Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority (MARTA).
In my experience with public transport including cities in the US such as Chicago, and cities in Europe such as London, I personally find MARTA comparably hard to use and not easily accessible. Chicago's "L" is widely used among all people across very diverse socioeconomic groups. Practically everyone in London uses the "Tube" to get from point A to point B. Atlanta's public transport is subpar at best.
Walled ghettos are a well-known example of physical segregation.90 Jewish people in Europe were made to live in separate, walled areas, as were Arab and European traders in China.91 This form of physical exclusion by walls and barriers is nothing new.92 However, it is not only a remnant of the distant past, but also exists in more modern examples.
These examples vs other examples of exclusion are different in nature, and I don't fully agree that they are comparable. Jewish people being forced to live in a separate area is blatant racism. Whereas the vast majority of other examples of exclusion by architectural means in this article are not blatant acts of racism. I do not believe the other examples are justifiable, I just do not think they are comparable to this particular example.
In contrast, although people of all socioeconomic groups use public transit—buses, subways, and light rail—in larger metropolitan areas, low-income people and people of color often rely more heavily on public transportation than people from other groups.
An example of this is the context in which people from different socioeconomic groups use public transportation. Higher-income individuals typically use public transportation as means of getting to an entertainment event, such as a sporting event or concert. Whereas people from lower-income groups use public transportation as means of getting to and from work.
Sometimes transit will allow a person to get close to a given area, but not all the way there, leaving the rider in a dangerous situation.
Another obstacle of finding means of transportation in affluent suburbs is the lack of taxi's. If the public transport doesn't take them to the exact location of where they need to be, the person would really have no other option than to walk. Whereas in a city, if you are not right were you need to be once departing public transport, there are taxi's readily available to take you that last leg.
Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods.
This shows the discrimination between the socioeconomic classes. Wealthy people thinking that they have this superiority over the middle class and poor class.
The effect of these types of residency requirements is often to exclude people who do not live in a given neighborhood from that neighborhood.
Again, I see the point. I would not feel comfortable with non-community members who don't pay taxes using my public facilities. This ease of access would cause overcrowding. I would prefer members of the community to only be allowed to use the space. Humans tend to take better care of the thing that they have to pay for, so the community members would take better care of the parks because they pay taxes, and non-community members would not because they do not have to pay. Isn't it so?