
Alas, everybody needs somebody to look down on. That would seem to be especially true in Britain, where inclusionary housing is recapturing English snobbery and prejudice that has long been a finely-crafted feature of quasi-public spaces.
Consider the history of the public house. Privately owned but publicly frequented pubs until recently offered a rustic public bar for the peasantry, a saloon bar for upscale wannabes and, at the tippety-top of look-downery, a snug bar where the upper crust could gather to sneer invisibly, screened off from the rabble.
So nowadays, how does inclusionary housing reflect these once voluntary forms of social segregation?
Across the Atlantic, a New York apartment building created quite a kerfuffle when it opened in 2016 with a separate entrance for the “affordable” class, something quickly dubbed a “poor door.” For more information on the building, as well as some international contempt for similar kinds of exclusionary practices, try: Chinese As Well As Americans Share Contempt For The Affordable “Poor Door”
Sad to say, but there are recent reports that poor doors (as well as other discriminatory practices) are alive and flourishing in supposedly inclusionary buildings in London, England. Read more in News Shopper: Greenwich Council Probe Into ‘Housing Segregation’ At Developments