How far can developers go to create phoney “separate but equal” housing projects? The answer is simple: as far as they like . . . when it’s their money that is at risk. They already have demonstrated a capacity to jump in at the deep end of this kind of development — quite literally.
A fine example is a spectacular London, UK housing project that extends active class discrimination from its usual targets of the poorest and most vulnerable. Instead it encourages the mega-rich to look down their noses at the wealthy-but-not-quite-wealthy-enough.1
However, when public money is involved, there must surely be limits. A recent, controversial proposal in London, suggests that while developers know no bounds, presumably the dispensers of public money are a little different. Public decision makers have a lot more critics they must answer to when it comes to the development of exclusive gardens, forbidden amenities, separate entrance doors and economic micro-ghettos in mixed income housing developments. Read more in The Guardian: ‘Poor floors’: anger over new plans to segregate tower block residents
But then again, perhaps government is not as limited as some might want. This is not the first time the issue has come up in London, nor is it the first time that people have expressed outrage about exclusions within buildings. Try: Poor Doors: “Excluding The Included” Lives On In Snob-Ravaged Britain
Footnotes
- Read more in The Guardian: Penthouses and poor doors: how Europe’s ‘biggest regeneration project’ fell flat
