However, many communities lack sidewalks and crosswalks, making it difficult to cross the street or walk through a neighborhood. Sometimes this is intentional
Referencing the other article by rosenberger, this would be an example of a use of architecture to divide communities, and a problem that those unaffected would never know about unless awareness was raised.
However, many communities lack sidewalks and crosswalks, making it difficult to cross the street or walk through a neighborhood. Sometimes this is intentional.
I have seen this just outside of Atlanta. Just outside of the areas dominated by businesses such as hotels, education or banking are the transitionary areas in which highway ramps merge in and out of the city. Past these areas are neighborhoods that are primarily low income individuals reliant on public transportation. Between this low income neighborhood and the city, there existed no sidewalks and little to no pedestrian light assistance. Those that do have personal transportations would have to take longer routes as these roads leading into the city were often 1 way streets.
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.188 As a result, those who do not live in or have friends in the neighborhood cannot drive in and park there.
This seems appropriate and fair that only those who are connected in some way to the neighborhood are allowed to use the area to park. I think that this prevents free-riding and doesn't promote segregration.
exclusionary transit design.
A few years ago, fully covered bench bus stops were almost always occupied at night with a homeless person, whereas now I have seen the rise of the use of signs to indicate where MARTA buses will stop, and the decline of covered benches.
Residents and policymakers in those areas have rejected proposals to bring Atlanta’s rapid transit network (MARTA) into their communities, which would have allowed inner-city workers easy access to these suburban jobs via public transit.137 The inability to use public transit to access the suburbs is one of the primary barriers preventing black people from obtaining suburban jobs.
I have lived in both cities and suburbs and this refusal to expand the transportation system to areas previously unaccessible to those without personal transportation detriments both areas. Suburbs are limited in the amount of development that can be sustainably achieved when the only individuals willing to work minimum or blue collar jobs are either the children of suburban residents or those that live within the city. Since innercity individuals cannot physically access the jobs out in the suburbs as a result of restricted public transportation both communities are harmed simply because citizens and lawmakers wish to keep out those they deem to be lower or undesirable.
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.24 Social norms encouraged some to threaten undesirable persons with violence if they were to enter or remain in certain spaces.25 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.
This article goes into detail various methods that architects and law makers can implement in the built environment in order to affect neighborhoods or the population that interacts with the environment. Whether by refusing to allow bus stops to reach certain areas, not building sidewalks between low and high income areas or placing physical barriers such as concrete walls or fences, all these methods change how people and traffic move and interact with the environment. Division, whether caused or enforced by the perception of race or class, separates the populace and increases the difficulty of the struggle that an individual must undertake in order to move through economical classes.
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. 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 is an idea that both this article and the Atlantic article by Robert Rosenberger share. Rosenberger speaks about how groups not directly targeted by architectural devices would simply pass these deterrents everyday and never know the social implications of these devices. If media and people do not both voice their concerns and listen to those affected, change will never be made. However in the case of anti-homeless spikes public concern banished this specific method of homeless deterrence from occuring in public places. In the yale law journal, those traveling to Jones beach in a car would never realize that the low overpasses prevented poorer residents who rely on public transportation from accessing the beach. In other situations, subtle situations such as the lack of sidewalks or bus stations prevent those in need from accessing resources only those able to afford their own transportation would be able to access.
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.
I noticed that this article focuses heavily on what in the built environment is changed or implemented and how these changes affect populations, but the majority of these changes seem to be made in mind to keep certain groups away, and that the only reasoning for these changes is as a result of classism or racism. Several times in this article it is said that there would be benefits to having low income individuals having access to higher income areas in the form of jobs and increased economy, but it seems ironic to me that these low income individuals who cannot physically access more jobs are kept poor as a result of those architects and lawmakers who designed these areas as to keep low income individuals out, but in turn prevent these individuals from progressing economically. It seems backwards to allow the continuation of this circular logic, in which individuals are held in contempt in the eyes of those that forced the "low class" in that situation.
Architectural Exclusion
The Atlantic article, "How Cities Use Design to Drive Homeless People Away" by Robert Rosenberger begins with the exhibition of metal spikes built into the floor of a corner in front of a business. This case of architechural design was implemented in order to deter the homeless away from this area. While public opinion managed to get these metal spikes removed, many other cases where architechture is used to exclude certain individuals are less obvious.
Many deterrents are only obvious to a passerby if you are affected by them. Benches or areas to sit that have what seem to be extra armrests actually prevent the homeless from laying on them for extended periods of time. Studs or large attachments to benches or edges in public space prevent skateboarders from using them to perform tricks. While architecture can be used to subtly divide communities, law and policy can be used visibly to target specific groups such as the homeless from entering unwanted areas.
Rosenberger, Robert. "How Cities Use Design to Drive Homeless People Away." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 19 June 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.
Another common version of this phenomenon is one of the most obvious forms of architectural exclusion: the walls, gates, and guardhouses of gated communities.
A gated community is not necessarily harmful to anyone, and it makes sense that most cities would not outlaw this type of architectural exclusion as it does not prevent anyone from trying to live there, it simply prevents the entry of anyone that does not have any real connection. Just as in the case of residential parking permits, this is a appropriate use of architecture. I don't fully understand why this was included, other than to be used as a transitioning point by the author to jump to another subject.
Edit: When positioned in certain areas, gated communities show people a visible difference in wealth and the economic divide between those that live within and those observing from outside. Aside from this, gated communities do not necessarily inhibit others from achieving growth. In many other cases, communities are gated in order to deter unwanted behavior and people such as criminals and solicitors from entering.
Buildings and assemblages of buildings make excellent sources of information about everyday people and everyday life because they exist in great numbers and are complex enough to shed light on many aspects of human behavior, from attitudes toward the use of space to aesthetic traditions and technological know-ho
A person's home would be the best indication of both their financial status, and the style that they could afford. With these two things, coupled with an analysis of the area in which they presided in, this could provide more accurate views of the economic divides between various classes.
To understand how people bring beauty to their lives, one must study the buildings themselves rather than literature about the
I would think that a proper understanding of both the surrounding literature and physical creations that individuals bring to their lives would benefit what was valued and how these values were physically implemented.
. Teachers are forced to remain at the front. Education emanates from front to back, and the room ensures compliance to this forma
Classrooms of this design are still used, and it is agreed by many that this type of classroom is traditional and outdated. So in the case of classrooms, are architectural analyses truly reflective of the time's culture, or do they fail to take into account the transition of cultural values?
e. As both the products of culture and its agents, buildings reflect our cultural values. Once created, they not only become symbolic representations of those values but also serve in their own way to enforce those values actively, making sure that they are adhered to and followed. In this sense, as anthropologists point out, the material world is reflexive: architecture, in the words of the social theorist Mark Gottdiener, “possesses the dual characteristics of being both a product of social relations and a producer of social relatio
I feel that buildings represent the era in which they are created, but do not completely enforce the social relations that created them. As time passes, these buildings are transformed and surpassed by each successor's needs and current values respectively.
t the evidence will be tainted by the interpretations ol oth
I don't think that evidence would be "tainted" per say, but rather these other interpretations by a group with diversified lives and characters would widen the view on how architecture would impact previous lives.
Buildings and assemblages of buildings make excellent sources of information about everyday people and everyday l
I agree that buildings and areas would be extremely informative in detailing the everyday lives of people. While I had first thought that everyday people would be working most of the day, to simply come back home to rest, I then realized that all the buildings within the proximity of home, such as restaurants and clubs, would better explain what a person would do in their free time.
es, no matter how 1 reliable their authors may be, the reader is always left with essentially secondhand orinclirect accounts of what happened— the written document stands between us and the actual behavior being written abo
I had questioned the accuracy and legitimacy of the analysis of buildings, as I had thought that although you may be able to find what a person owned or how his/her life was generally structured at that time, I doubted that the ownership of such things would be able to indicate a clear and cut answer of how they really lived their life.
Culture is unseen and immaterial, consisting of the ideas, values, and beliefs of a particular social group or society; but it is everywhere within us, shaping our behavior, helping us to choose the right things to say, providing rules for social interaction, and giving us mental blueprints for making the things we need, from bread pans to buildings
While culture may indeed be the foundation for how things to be, it is individual personality and a lifetime of conscious decision that gives life and meaning to our surroundings.
In this text, the authors explain the process of analysing the history of buildings and landscapes of certain geographical regions, and how areas are shaped by the experiences and cultures of those who lived in these places at specific times.
Carter, T., & Cromely, E. C. (2005). Invitation to vernacular architecture: a guide to the study of ordinary buildings and landscapes. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee.
. Among Americans, for example, people for whom private space is a highly valued commodit
I think that privacy is valued so highly in the U.S as a result of the "American Dream". The Dream is to be able to achieve prosperity in whatever fashion is chosen. Success in the United States is not only determined by the wealth you have, but also the relationships, connections, and reputations one holds with others in that there must be a balance between the two. Due to the pressures and stresses this places upon an individual, I believe this is why privacy is so valued.