America's new gilded age with its increasing disparities and growing patchwork of pockets of poverty covering the nation like smallpox (see map) causes thoughts about access or the lack thereof. Not to have access, and the associated lack of opportunity have become chief explanations for systemic poverty. Baltimore's unrest in 2015 is frequently explained by the lack of access to jobs and good transportation to get to where the jobs are.
Access has become a buzzword. Access to healthcare (in spite of progress under Obamacare), access to good food, access to good schools, access to information, access to banks. Typically the disparities in access are seen as geo-spatial locational issues. That poor neighborhoods don't have certain facilities is usually seen as a brick and mortar problem of the kind that urban planners know how to solve: Build health clinics, build grocery stores, build better schools, build more transit, build factories, build banks, build parks.
The list is of what is missing is long. No matter how many workshops are convened around Baltimore's center of unrest at Penn and North or how many grants and programs may be provided to address the ills of systemic poverty, sufficient resources for all those projects are not likely to materialize. Meanwhile the patches on the map of poverty grow larger and the quilt they form becomes ever more depressing even during a time of relative good economic health.. for the full article click below:
Community Architect: How Technology Can Provide Access for Distressed Communities
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Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
Baltimore MD
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