Interesting discussion yesterday in Mrs. A’s 10:00 English class. Discussion centered on my fellow classmates reactions to an article in the April 2015 edition of The Yale Law Journal. The author of the article, Sarah Schindler is an associate Professor of Law, University of Maine Law School.
The article contends that we presently have laws and regulations which prevent exclusion and discrimination in employment and housing, etc., but architectural designs and related building, roads and other physical infrastructure are not presently addressed by law or regulation. Numerous examples were given by Professor Schindler of how architecture can be restrictive. For example, making bridges lower so that buses cannot use specific roads to get to suburban park areas. Mentioned in the article was how public transit can be discriminatory in placement of stops, where they do not go, etc. This prompted a class discussion on Atlanta’s MARTA rail system. MARTA’s non presence in Cobb County, an adjacent northern suburb to Atlanta is detrimental to inner city residents. For example, the Atlanta Braves baseball team’s decision to move to a new stadium in Cobb County next year impacts present MARTA dependent inner city workers. Employees at the present Braves baseball stadium, who depend on MARTA, will not be able to work at the new stadium due to MARTA’s absence. Also in town Atlanta Braves fans who depend on MARTA to see games will be impacted. Wouldn’t you think restricting access for existing paying customers would be a concern of Atlanta Braves Management? Maybe the thinking is that more of the wealthier Northern suburbs will attend to offset the loss of existing in town fans, as the Northern suburb attendees will be free of the need to go “downtown”.
In preparing for the class discussion I found an article that reported seeing many bumper stickers in Cobb County during the last voter election to fund MARTA. The sticker read “Share Atlanta Crime – Support MARTA”. To me this indicated Cobb County residents historical resistance to MARTA is not totally driven alone by a modest increase to their sales tax.
I welcome my fellow classmate’s comments. In yesterday’s class one point of view was that this whole concept of architectural discrimination is overblown and people are just looking to find things to bring up. Not the words of my classmate, but I interpreted this as “political correctness gone a muck”. Um, where else these days have we heard similar sentiments?
