Daniel Kolitz examined all the ways that public infrastructure can be used to discriminate:

• Ever since anti-discriminatory laws have passed, racists have looked for subtle ways that they can prevent people of a different skin colour from entering their communities.
• Robert Moses, a city-builder for example, had all Long Island Parkway overpasses built with a clearance as low as 2.3 meters, to prevent lower income people, who are typically minorities and rely on buses, to enter the richer areas of Long Island.
• Public beaches with homes may not have public bathrooms, or public parking lots, ensuring that those who live on the waterfront essentially get to treat the public beaches as private property.
• Roads linking rich and poor communities may be closed due to “noise” concerns.
• Public infrastructure – such as subway lines – may be prevented from extending to richer communities, to keep the poor away.

The full article goes into all the ways that infrastructure can be used to segregate. Read it here.

Source: Hopes & Fears