While the Court’s opinion
In May 2016, Selden v. Airbnb, Inc., was underway. "Plaintiff Gregory Selden brought this suit against Airbnb, alleging unlawful race discrimination." Airbnb was attacked with "promoting bigotry, racism, hatred, and harassment"
Buchanan v. Warley
In relation to the Buchanan v. Warley case of 1915, Norrinda Brown Hayat wrote an article for CNN, "Trying to appear "not too black" on Airbnb is exhausting." In her article, Airbnb is featured. Airbnb is a popular website where people can host out their living spaces to people on vacation or other reasons for a cheaper price than hotels and have the luxury of a home whilst on a vacation. Hayat write that trying to get a host to accept you while visiting an area, and not appearing "too black" is hard. Hayat graduated from an Ivy League college, is a professor and a lawyer, who lives in a suburban neighborhood with children who attend a Montessori school. Hayat revelaes a study done by professors at the Harvard Business School shows "that requests from guests with distinctively African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively White names."
Yet the bench may have been created this way to prevent people—often homeless people—from lying down and taking naps.
It's not just benches either, its spikes in flat spaces that deter people from sleeping outside certain buildings and skateboard deterrents. Rosenberger says "The problem remains, but it’s rendered invisible." The general public just doesn't notice the little things, it's the people who are searching for shelter from a thunderstorm or unseasonably cold weather.
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.
In relation to Robert Rosenberger's article titled "How Cities Use Deign to Drive Away Homeless People Away", Schindler also points out two very similar points. First, Rosenberger points out the park benches. As does Schindler. Rosenberger says that its an "example of a pervasive homeless deterrence technology," to have the full-length benches with the vertical arm rests in between the seats. It makes to where only three people can sit on the bench, and not to mention how incredibly uncomfortable they are to it on. This is done on purpose. Schindler Schindler mentions how to the public, unknowing eye, the bench just looks like it is supposed to have three individual seats, but in reality, it's to discourage the homeless from napping or staying on the bench for long periods of time.
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.
According to the 2015 Atlanta homlessness report, 65% of the homless community around and in Atlanta were African American and out of the 14,000 homless people, 74% were unsheltered and male, 26% were unsheltered and female. The terms "sheltered" and "unsheltered" homlessness refers to if they reside in a car, park, or abandoned building. "Sheltered" refers to those who live in an emergency shelter or transitional housing. Regardless of the status, the Atlanta (unsheltered) homless population has since dropped from 11,348 in 2011 to 5,803 in 2015. (http://www.dca.state.ga.us/housing/specialneeds/programs/documents/HomelessnessReport2015.pdf)
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
MARTA (bus system) travels al over metro-Atlanta. The farthest north it travels is North Point Mall. The Farthest East it travels is Stonecrest Mall in Dekalb County. The Farthest south it travels is Lovejoy City in Clayton County, thus allowing an array of people to "park and ride." (http://www.itsmarta.com/bus-routes.aspx)