The Legacy of Radical Exclusion in Cities

Abstract

The cities we live in today continue to be largely inaccessible, unaffordable, and restrictive, leading to the intentional and unintentional exclusion of marginalized groups. This is the result of decisions made by various entities that influence the design of cities and create a sense of either exclusion or belonging. The lack of accessibility in the built environment perpetuates inequity and marginalizes difference, such as the exclusion of people with disabilities in employment due to inaccessible workplaces. The notion of exclusion was entrenched by the “ugly laws” in the Progressive Era, where persons with disabilities were prevented from commodifying their disability and punished for begging in public. The laws also reinforced the eugenic logic of segregation through the institutionalization of disabled individuals. If we want to build inclusive and resilient cities, we must understand the historical context and beliefs that have shaped our urban landscapes. And we must address the ways in which beliefs and assumptions about personhood, citizenship, and rights have shaped and continue to shape our cities.

We have a myth in this country that we’re all here because of our own efforts, that we’re self-made. We have a myth that if you’re poor, if you’re living in ghettos or segregated neighborhoods, it’s because you haven’t tried hard enough. This mythology ignores the extent to which federal, state, and local government has created the very ghettos that we live in, and that these were intentional creations. (Richard Rothstein,¹ The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America²)

In 1982, when I was only four years old and about to start school, my family lived in Caracas, Venezuela. The city was set in a tropical vibrant valley and was full of life. But this bustling modern metropolis was not built for a child like me. As my mother attended school enrollment appointments, she was filled with rage at the way every school would respond to her petition to enroll a child who had difficulty walking without assistance. She was systematically turned away, I was denied my right to education time after time.

The schools we visited seemed to have no room for a child like me, a child that was weak and had difficulty walking. I was seen as a burden, I was seen as a liability to the school, not as an asset. I could see the pain and sadness in my mother’s eyes, and although I did not understand, I felt the sting of discrimination myself.

As a young adult I came to see how race repositioned and complicated my own lived experience, as a disabled person of color I navigated worlds of stigma, discrimination, and exclusion by design. Rothstien (2017) argues that the social and physical positioning of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the United States was “the result of racially motivated policies that violate our constitutional rights.” He argues that many institutions over time violated the principles of equal justice under law and fundamentally undermined the principles of democracy.

The parallel between discrimination based on race and discrimination based on disability is clear—our current systems are built to exclude those who do not conform to certain standards. By recognizing and addressing these forms of discrimination, we can work toward a more just and inclusive society.

This insight has shaped my life in many ways. As an immigrant and a first generation American, I now understand that my experiences were not unique to the United States. All over the globe, I witnessed systems built on the premise of a “standardized student,” with standardized tests, that advanced standardized workers, and led a standardized life. To be “normal,” to fit the mold. As a human rights expert and senior government advisor, I came to see how destructive the normative notions of modernity excluded people by design. Specifically excluded people like me that did not fit the norm.

The underlying concept of radical exclusion, which is pervasive in public policy, architecture, and urban planning, has led us to build a world of segregation and apartheid. Children and adults with disabilities like me are too often denied the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers and are relegated to separate, often inferior, educational, work, transportation systems, and environments. These environments have essentially been built to exclude by design.

Despite the challenges, my mother’s courage afforded me opportunities others took for granted. She continued to search for a school that would accept me, and eventually we found one in another country, in the progressive state of California. Ms Dearing at Roy O. Anderson Elementary school provided me with the support and accommodations I needed to enter the first grade, to learn alongside my peers. This experience changed the course of my education and my life. I now can offer technical guidance with first-hand experiences of radical exclusion to undo the systems and barriers that limit our collective potential. I can point out the misters that deny rights and share common policy and design errors that frustrate our progress toward building the cities and the futures we need.

As an urban planner and educator, it is evident to me that cities are at the center of this struggle. Cities as human systems are rife with exclusion and attempts to define what a “normal” body is by shaping the built environment around a normative ideal. The consequences of these efforts have produced cities that are inaccessible, inefficient, and poorly prepared to meet demographic projections or future needs. This chapter explores how this came to be by highlighting the history of these efforts, from so-called “ugly laws,” punishing people with disabilities for being in public, to Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, which imagined a utopian city that defined spaces that cared for people with disabilities in a manner that segregated them from public life. Ultimately, this chapter sets up the basis from which to imagine how a radically inclusive urban future could better minimize the harm and build belonging by design in cities of tomorrow.

There is nothing inevitable about the cities we live in today. That they continue to be largely inaccessible or continue to intentionally and unintentionally create barriers for marginalized groups. That they are segregated, unaffordable, and restrictive. This is not by chance, nor is it an inevitable product of urbanization. Instead, as this chapter describes, the cities we have created continue to create inclusion and exclusion by design. Cities exist this way because of decisions made by planners, community members, city leaders, politicians, and commercial interests that create a sense of othering and/or belonging by design.

The continued exclusion of many varied groups in our cities has not always been wholly intentional, but it has always been a product of the physical manifestations of our biases, beliefs, and assumptions about who lives in cities and how they deserve to access space. During an interview with an executive at a large technology company, we came across the topic of radical inclusion by design. He succinctly stated the obvious, “If we don’t intentionally include, we unintentionally exclude.” With this understanding, it becomes vital to reassess our priorities in cities. What are the dominant contemporary social and moral values? Where is the compass to guide our actions, thoughts, and beliefs? Do our institutions have the capacity to manage and distribute justice (as we will see later in this chapter when discussing the “politics of difference”). If we are to build cities that are radically inclusive and resilient, we must understand the ways in which both modern and antiquated beliefs about personhood, citizenship, and rights have created cities that fail to work for everyone.

Theorists such as Iris Marion Young and Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum³ laid the critical groundwork for this discussion with arguments such as Young’s that structural oppression is the fundamental source of injustice. This injustice in the built environment is the result of procedures and practices that perpetuate inequity, from inaccessible public transport to redlining.⁴ These processes, Young argues, marginalize difference and perpetuate the understanding that there is a normative way to exist in the world. Young, in Justice and the Politics of Difference, defines marginal people as those that “the system of labor cannot or will not use” (p. 53) who remain marginal not because of their inability to work but because of societal definitions of what constitutes capable and worthy. These beliefs shape our environment, locking people with disabilities out of employment due to inaccessible workplaces, inaccessible streets, inaccessible transport systems, and societal beliefs about the capacities of those with disabilities.

Moreover, this chapter builds off the work of scholars such as Robert Imrie and most notably Susan Schweik who further consider the way attitudes and beliefs about people with disabilities, the elderly, and other groups continue to shape our urban landscape.

Explicit Exclusion in Ugly Laws

According to Susan Schweik’s seminal research the first known “ugly law” ordinance was created in San Francisco in 1867.⁵ It formed part of larger laws against begging and prohibited “certain persons from appearing in streets and public places.” The certain persons were those who were “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed” (p. 25). Ugly laws were also known as “unsightly beggar ordinance.” Other cities including Portland, OR., Chicago, Denver, Omaha, Columbus, Lincoln, New Orleans, and Reno all passed similar laws, as well as the state of Pennsylvania. The last known arrest of an individual under an “ugly law” occurred in Omaha, NE. in 1974.

Police sometimes faced difficulty enforcing such laws. Schweik notes that a 1921 New York Times article described how “the chief impediment to a general elimination of public begging is the sympathy of the public” and further explained that crowds would gather and prevent the officer from making an arrest. In an effort to limit such public support, the Charity Organization Society pushed for New York to pass an “anti freak bill” to manage the problem of vagrants whose “deformities are exposed to the public gaze simply to excite sympathy” (p. 100).

According to Schweik, ugly laws more broadly prevented persons with disabilities from commodifying their disability, such as in the form of “freak-shows.” Disabled people who lost access, or never had access in the first place, to gainful employment due to their disability were prevented from finding other ways to make money (p. 107).

According to Schweik, “ugly laws both reinforced and were impelled by a eugenic logic of segregation.” Ugly Laws often included stipulations that replaced the mandatory fine or jail time with time in an almshouse for those who were disabled. Almshouses, however, provided largely temporary arrangements for those in their care, creating a revolving door beginning with an arrest under an ugly law citation and ending with a person being released from an almshouse only to return again. Predictably, widespread institutionalization grew out of the culture of ugly laws and was seen as a method of eugenics throughout segregation whereby disabled individuals were prevented from having children through lifelong institutionalization (p. 118).

The Progressive Era saw “deformed” individuals as problems that “would have to be managed as much as architecture, street layout or drainage,” according to Schweik (p. 120). The “City Beautiful” movement of this era imagined great, beautiful cities that reserved public spaces for “the sanitized and regulated social body” (p. 122). Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden City” plan exemplified the Progressive era focus on beautiful and well-organized cities by imagining a city consisting of “radially planned” small towns each connected to each other through transportation systems but surrounded by gardens, parks, and natural land. Howard’s plan placed the sick, disabled, and otherwise deformed or unappealing out of sight in asylums, so-called epileptic farms, and homes for the poor. Schweik describes how plans such as Howard’s provided the opportunity to create “disability-free boulevards” and that ugly laws served as “one of the many mechanisms... [for] policing space in the city” (p. 148).

Implicit Exclusion in The Garden City

Unlike explicit laws preventing people with disabilities from accessing public spaces (i.e., ugly laws), Ebenezer Howard’s “Garden City” plan sought to keep disabled people on the periphery, relegating them to a life separated from the non-disabled.

Howard’s Garden City is considered by many to be a utopian ideal for suburban living. Howard imagined radial communities with sections demarcated for public parks, businesses, industry, and housing. Each city had a population limit of 32,000, at which point a new radial community would be developed nearby. He imagined a community of seven cities, one in the center and the other six arranged in a circle outside, each connected to each other by canals and railways. Between each city, he imagined farmland, forests, reservoirs, cemeteries, and homes and asylums for people with disabilities, the unhoused, and orphaned, and those addicted to alcohol. Howard felt that urbanization and industrialization were causing declines in health and happiness and that his Garden City plan would both promote health and care for those who remain unhealthy (e.g., those with disabilities).

Howard imagined disability as the opposite of health and wellbeing, and he planned insane asylums, “epileptic farms,” “blind colleges,” and “convalescent homes” located between the cities, amidst farmland and forests. Rob Imrie, in his book Disability and the City: International Perspectives, argues that Howard’s construction of health was directly “counterposed” to disability and “disablement,” and as a result, he relegated “epileptics,” “inebriates,” the “convalescent,” and the “insane” to segregated areas away from cities (Imrie, p. 121). Howard described these areas as “various charitable and philanthropic institutions” and argued further that “it is but just and right that the more helpless brethren should be able to enjoy the benefits of an experience which is designed for humanity at large” (Howard, p. 20). Susan Schweik, in her book Ugly Laws, further argues that Howard’s garden city promised “disability-free boulevards” (p. 73).

The Faces of Oppression by Iris Marion Young

The decision to keep people with disabilities out of public view, through institutionalization, ugly laws, and inaccessible design, has shaped our cultural understanding of who belongs in a city. Ed Roberts, quoted in the book The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation, described how legislators, when pushed on the need to build curb cuts, said “Curb cuts, why do you need curb cuts? We never see people with disabilities out on the streets. Who is going to use them?”⁶ As stated by Prince (2008) “The history of urbanization for people with disabilities involves a history of institutional segregation, sterilization, charitable responses to needs, stigma, and prejudice, and the medicalization of conditions and identities.”⁷

Iris Marion Young, in Justice and the Politics of Difference, argues that “justice should refer not only to distribution, but also to the institutional conditions necessary for the development and exercise of individual capacities and collective communication and cooperation” (p. 39). Young describes how marginalization expels a wide range of individuals and groups from “useful participation in social life” potentially condemning them to “severe material deprivation and even extermination.”

The built environment has played a key role in reproducing the marginal status of people with disabilities. Radically inclusive cities value, defend, and promote difference in urban spaces. The normative built environment throughout the world only includes those groups deemed normative and otherwise socially acceptable. City blocks, inaccessible due to crumbling cement or lack of curb cuts, provide access to only those unencumbered by such barriers. Buildings, parks, community centers, and other markers of urban social life, that are unreachable by public transit or inaccessible due to design, define what is normative, acceptable, and otherwise valued in those spaces. Young argues that “by definition, a public space is a place accessible to everyone” and that “social justice in the city requires the realization of politics of difference” (p. 240). Social justice therefore demands targeted policies to ensure that all groups are included and can participate.

In the urban environment, realizing the politics of difference means building spaces that do not create barriers or prevent participation and rather promote and defend the access of all groups. A city that does not prioritize the access and inclusion of persons with disabilities has decided that disabled people do not have the same value or citizenship worth as those without disabilities. In other words, treating all people the same creates unequal results; cities that do not promote politics of difference choose instead to protect only what they view as normative. Requiring all people to climb stairs into the library is perhaps equal, but not equitable or inclusive.

Robert Imrie in Disability and the City argues that “the built environment has a physical inertia that resists change to the extent that many come to view city structures and spaces as almost fixed and immutable” (p. 11). He further asserts that the general public falsely assumes that the city is able to provide access for most people and thus those unable to access it in its current form are responsible for figuring out alternatives. Of course, even non-disabled people face barriers when interacting with the built environment, either because the design was inherently flawed or due to a city’s failure to prioritize routine repairs or upgrades. Imrie argues, as I have earlier in this book, that cities embody the cultural and socio-political zeitgeist of their time. He points out that racial and socio-economic inequalities are literally “mapped” onto cities in the form of redlining, gentrification, and suburbanization.

Our socio-institutional beliefs against persons with disabilities are also mapped onto our cities. Imrie argues that a key contributor to the continued economic marginalization of persons with disabilities is the belief that “disabled people are characterized by poor and/or limited work abilities.” As stated above, many dwellers remain marginal not because of their inability to work but because of societal definitions of what constitutes capable and worthy. These beliefs shape our built environment, locking people with disabilities out of employment due to inaccessible workplaces and public transportation systems.

If We Don’t Intentionally Include We Unintentionally Exclude

Cities and urban settlements inherently wrestle with a spatial dimension of the social contract, specifically who belongs in the city, and who can be considered a citizen of that city. What is an ideal citizen and what values does the city uphold? Every city leader that I have worked with or interviewed to some degree either apologizes for or flatly rejects any possible shortcomings with respect to their work access, equity, or exclusion. Cities around the world make headlines with racial, economic, and ethnic tensions that occasionally manifest somewhere along the continuum of protest, civil unrest, or regime change.

Planning for Neurodiverse and Autism Friendly Cities

The concept of designing environments specifically for people with autism is relatively new. It has only been in the last few decades that the needs of people with autism have been widely recognized and addressed in the design of public spaces.

One of the earliest examples of autism friendly design can be traced back to the 1990s, when a group of parents in the United Kingdom created a sensory garden for their children with autism. This garden, which was specifically designed to be relaxing and not overstimulating, was one of the first examples of a public space that was tailored to the needs of people with autism.

Since then, the concept of autism friendly design has gained more mainstream attention and has been applied in a variety of settings, including schools, homes, and public buildings. Today, there are numerous organizations and experts around the world who are dedicated to promoting autism friendly design and providing resources and guidance to those interested in creating more inclusive environments for people with autism.⁸

There are a few key actions that can be done to make cities or spaces more autism friendly:

• Establish guidelines and standards: Developing clear guidelines and standards for autism friendly design can help ensure that new buildings and public spaces are designed with the needs of people with autism in mind. These guidelines could be based on best practices from other countries and should be developed in consultation with experts and people with autism.

• Provide sensory-friendly public spaces: Many people with autism have sensory processing issues, so it’s important to create public spaces that are aimed at being calming rather than overstimulating environments. This might include quiet rooms or outdoor spaces with fewer visual and auditory distractions.

• Make transportation accessible: People with autism may have difficulty navigating unfamiliar environments or using public transportation. Ensuring public spaces are physically easily accessible and providing clear signage and wayfinding tools, as well as training staff to be aware of the needs of people with autism, can help make transportation more accessible.

• Promote social inclusion: People with autism may struggle with social interactions, so it’s important to create opportunities for them to participate in their community. This might include supporting groups and activities specifically for people with autism or providing training and support for businesses to be more inclusive of people with autism.

• Provide information and resources: Providing information and resources about autism to the public can help raise awareness and understanding of the needs of people with autism, which can lead to more inclusive communities.

Pop out Box: Case Study on Autism Friendly Hotel

A quick practical application of guidelines and measures to make an accessible, autism friendly hotel may include:

• 1. Designing guest rooms with sensory-friendly features such as blackout curtains, white noise machines, and weighted blankets.

• 2. Providing social skills training for hotel staff to help them communicate effectively with guests with autism and manage behaviors as needed.

• 3. Offering a range of accessible room options, including wheelchair-accessible rooms and rooms with visual fire alarms for guests with hearing impairments.

• 4. Providing information and resources about the local area for guests with autism, including maps with clear wayfinding and lists of sensory-friendly activities and attractions.

• 5. Implementing technology such as assistive communication devices and sensory aids to support guests with autism during their stay.

Urban Planning for Mental Health

Design and urban planning interventions aimed at improving mental health may differ from those aimed at creating autism friendly cities in some ways, but there are also many similarities between the two approaches. One key similarity is the importance of creating environments that are sensory-friendly and comfortable for all users. This may involve designing public spaces that are quiet and calming, with minimal visual clutter and comfortable seating options. Both approaches may also incorporate the use of technology to create more accessible and inclusive environments. In the case of mental health, this may involve the use of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) to create immersive environments that promote relaxation and stress reduction.

However, there is also the need to recognize the distinctions that are necessary between the different approaches. One key difference is that interventions aimed at improving mental health may need to address a broader range of mental health issues including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), among others. This may require a more comprehensive approach that includes not only physical design changes but also changes to policies, programs, and services.

In both cases, it is also important to involve people with lived experience in the design and planning process to ensure that their needs and perspectives are taken into account. This can help to promote more integrated approaches by ensuring that everyone, regardless of ability or mental health status, has a say in the design of the spaces and services that they use.

Examples of effective and specific design and policy interventions that can be implemented in cities to improve the impacts of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) include:

• Green and blue spaces: Access to green or blue spaces⁹ has been linked to lower levels of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Cities can create more parks and green spaces or retrofit existing spaces to make them more inviting and accessible to everyone.¹⁰ This can include adding more trees and plants, installing seating areas and providing amenities like water fountains and restrooms.

• Active transportation: Encouraging active transportation, such as walking or cycling, can help to promote physical activity and reduce the risk of depression and anxiety. Cities can create more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly infrastructure such as bike lanes, pedestrian crossings, and safe routes to school. Additionally, providing amenities like bike-sharing programs with accessible trikes or three wheeled bikes and secure bike parking can make it easier for people to facilitate accessible journeys and choose active transportation.¹¹

• Sensory-friendly public spaces: Cities can create sensory-friendly public spaces and transportation systems (such as quiet carriages) that are designed to be calming and comfortable for all users. This was showcased in Doha during the city’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup. The games were promoted as the most accessible global sporting event in history. Key features in the stadiums and other sporting infrastructure included rooms for reducing noise levels, minimizing visual clutter, and providing diverse seating options that are comfortable for people with different sensory needs.

• Accessible mental health services: Cities can work to ensure that mental health services are accessible and affordable for all residents. This can include providing funding for mental health clinics and support groups, offering telehealth services for people who cannot physically visit a clinic, and ensuring that mental health services are covered by insurance.

• Inclusive public engagement: Cities can engage with residents in an inclusive way to ensure their voices are heard in the planning and design process. This can include conducting community meetings in accessible locations, providing interpretation and translation services, and working with community-based organizations to reach a wider range of residents.

Overall, while there may be some differences between interventions aimed at creating autism friendly cities and those aimed at improving mental health, there are also many similarities. By taking a comprehensive and inclusive approach to design and planning, we can create urban environments that promote both physical and mental wellbeing for all users. New approaches are evolving throughout Europe to deploy more holistic solutions that also link mental health and wellbeing to culture, circular economy, and environmental protections through the reimagining and re-using open spaces and buildings.¹²

In the next chapter I will present a constructive new approach, that of Radical Inclusion, to building cities that are better suited to realize a more just, fair, equitable, and barrier-free future.

Callout Box—News Article

• Why accessible sidewalks fall by the wayside¹³

• Source: Planetizen

Consider This

Despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act more than 30 years ago, many U.S. cities delay making accessibility improvements to sidewalks until activists bring them to court. Cities including Los Angeles, Baltimore, Long Beach, Calif. and Portland, Ore. have all been sued for dangerous sidewalk conditions, but even the suits that advocates win can take decades to translate into real results on the ground. Funding accessible and well-maintained networks of sidewalks should be a basic civil right, not something that occurs only once lawyers get involved, and would make a far greater difference to people with mobility challenges than winning lawsuits.

The fact that cities often delay making accessibility improvements to sidewalks until activists bring them to court demonstrates that the passage of legislation doesn’t necessarily translate into compliance or lead to the outcomes the legislation was designed to enact. By dragging these cases through the courts, it means that there are extended periods of time where people with disabilities are exposed to dangerous or mobility-limiting conditions in the streets and spaces of their cities. It is time for cities to proactively fund and maintain accessible networks of sidewalks as a basic civil right.