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by tomasien 2507 days ago
There are many hyper-local issues like this where the real solution involves:

- actually wanting the problem to get solved

- finding out, at a very micro-level, how to solve it

- deploying those seemingly unscalable resources towards solving the problem

I suspect it will be more challenging to roll this out in a wider pilot and then city/state/nationwide because of bullet point #1.

2 comments

Indeed. My understanding is that most socio-economic housing segregation is deliberate (on the part of those that can afford it). The ethno-racial segregation is a byproduct. Potential allies of reforming the latter are de facto opposition due to the former.
Racial segregation in the US is at least partly a direct descendant of New Deal and postwar housing policy that mandated segregated housing projects. Segregation was a deliberate policy and a massive social engineering effort.

There is nothing natural about the current amount of segregation in the US.

Not a descendant. Redlining was explicitly part of the New Deal era’s HOLC’s mission. There’s a great podcast on the topic from a couple years ago here: https://castro.fm/episode/UxCiQp

Segregation was a deliberate policy and a massive social engineering effort

Yep you got that right for sure.

Segregation happens naturally as well. In Singapore after few race violence instances government made it mandarory for all government provided housing have a similar make up as the population in general.
it shouldn't be more challenging if each locality addresses this problem on their own on the local level.

the problem with doing a nationwide campain is that they tend to be pushed from above with a one size fits all approach: if it worked in seattle, then it must work in miami. but really, each locality needs to approach this on their own and find a locally appropriate way to solve it.

as you say finding out, at a very micro-level, how to solve it