The urban crisis is the intended fruit of spatial segregation

Evidence

The paradox of the situation is that having created the spatial order, we now throw up our hands in horror at its continuing unfolding, and speak in hysterical tones of the “urban crisis.” What is the urban crisis but the inexorable expression of the spatial segregation of persons and activities-the essence of spatial ordering. That this order has created poverty-stricken central cities ringed by sprawling suburbs hooked together by pollution-creating transportation devices does not gainsay its serviceability in keeping the urban world social psychologically, if not physically, livable. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 1034

Categorization

• SEED: Angles toward an essay on how complaints about segregation mislabel a functioning coping mechanism — the ‘crisis’ is the tax paid for categorical legibility.