Racial discrimination has been apart of this country since its foundation and the way that it has been kept up through the changes of out right discrimination has been through architectural exclusion. The term architectural exclusion refers to the built environment of a building or city that prevents a group of people often less fortunate or people of color from accessing a certain part of town.”

Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach”. (excerpt taken from the abstract) This example from the reading is how the built environment  kept people who didn’t have a car from accessing the beach most of these people were of little wealth or African american naturally this was keeping a white only beach without the backlash of having a sign saying that up.

Although today we have laws to prevent discrimination we are still subjected to it through the environment built around us which is why most neighborhoods that are historically poor are the same way til this day. We explore this ideology in part I of Schindler’s work as we expand upon the idea of architecture being a form of regulation, this is because to the big wigs of social and economic justice the term built environment doesn’t fit well enough.  The built environment regulates movement from one area to another , peoples influence on a given area , and one could even argue the quality of life for people in a certain area.

” The Constitutional Court in Germany is in Karlsruhe, while the capital is in Berlin, limits the influence of one branch of government over the other. These constraints function in a way that shapes behavior. In this way, they too regulate”. This excerpt speakers more to my decoding of the authors thoughts that people who are farther away from there government don’t have as much influence and most times these people are often poor or disproportionately people of color who have been stuck in these neighborhoods from not being able to move due to transportation, job placement is to far , historically poor neighborhoods that have been blackballed from society.

Within part II we are shown the physical barriers that block people from reaching places that upper- and middle-class white people inhabit and wouldn’t want poor or people of color to become more frequently spotted in these areas. One example of white neighborhoods separating themselves from black ones is the 8 mile wale in Detroit.

In Detroit in 1940, a private developer constructed a six-foot-high wall—known as Eight Mile Wall—to separate an existing black neighborhood from a new white one that was to be constructed.93 Historically, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) provided financing for a new development project only if the neighborhood was sufficiently residential and racially segregated.94 In the case of the Eight Mile Wall, the FHA would not finance the new housing project unless the wall was constructed because the FHA believed that the proposed new development was too close to an existing black one.95 The wall still exists today—a legacy of discriminatory government policy—and though Detroit has experienced declines in segregation in recent years, this city is still the most racially segregated metropolitan area in the United States.96.

The article was one in which we got a more in depth look at how the built environment and its effects  causing segregation and leaving people in disproportionately lower income areas with practically no way out in our modern day society. I for one have really gotten a new perspective on how buildings and even neighborhoods are built and where they are places. Although I’m not sure we can make a difference bringing up theses issues could help influences our leaders to make an impact on this modern day Jim crow like segregation.