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."
Buchanan v. Warley
In the court case of Buchanan v. Warley(1915), Charles H. Buchanan, a white home seller, and William Warley, an African-American buyer, were involved in this case because of rules regarding the 14th Amendment. Buchanan pressured Warley to buy his home and then turned around to say that the ordinance of the residence that was to be built "barred African Americans from moving into mostly white neighborhoods, and prevented him from completing the sale." What wasn't present was the fact that the ordinance was race neutral, meaning that " in its application, it was bilateral and reciprocal obligations to both races." Anyone could purchase the lot. But, Buchanan attacked the ordinance in his lawsuit stating that it was "a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment," which states, by the passing of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1866 , “All citizens … shall have the same right … as is enjoyed by white citizens to … purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.” In the end, the Court reached a decision in the light of the Fourteenth Amendment respected the rights of African Americans to “purchase property and enjoy and use the same without laws discriminating against them solely on account of color.” (http://www.blackpast.org/aah/buchanan-v-warley-1917)
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)
I N V I TAT ION TOVernacular Architecture
The article "Unpredictable, High Risk, High Cost: Planning for the worst is the worst" by Ben Brown discusses planning for the worst disasters is a waste of time and money. Brown mentions Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina and Rita struck in 2005. The government spent $120 billion dollars to help rebuild the city, homes and schools. He mentions that in this recent disaster, we spent more money rebuilding Louisiana, when in World War Two, we spent less than 120 billion dollars to help rebuild countries in Eastern Europe with the Marshall Plan. The governor of Louisiana said that their super prepared for any new disaster. When in reality, that's not true. It is impossible to be 100% prepared for natural disasters. Spending excess amounts of money to "prepare" for natural disasters isn't going to help. Brown says the most efficient way to avoid things life this is to "move out of the threat". Living next to a fire-prone forest or near a beach that is known for strong winds and high tides, we can eliminate the amount of money that has to go into this type of planning.
reading it as a historical text
Think about how we read old documents and archives.
apply the known to the unknown,
if you think about it, we apply this to a variety of aspects in our daily lives.
Learning to read architecture—
They talk about reading buildings and structures like one would read a novel. There's always ways to dig deeper in everything you do. Details are one of the most important things in life.
Sometimes, in studying contemporary buildings, you may find the people who made or used the buildings speaking about bow they were used or what they meant.
I'm a big history nerd and when I visit places like Charleston, NC or Savannah, Ga, just places with a lot of history to them, I always find myself looking at the old building and homes and trying to think what it would be like to live around the time that building/house was in it's prime.
The idea for it came from the classroom. A
Architecture is such a diverse topic. Around the world architecture varies and is very unique. For the topic of this book to come from a classroom is quite ironic in the sense that you have to explore your corner of the globe to understand architecture.
Material culture
By taking a biological anthropology class last year, material culture is always relevant in the many societies that were discussed. It is one of the only ways we have developed to see into the past and how humans lived.