Economic Segregation is not Okay.
In the list of the many, many socioeconomic issues that are never discussed in this country, probably the one that flies furthest below the radar is this: Economic segregation - the physical stratification of communities, cities, even entire regions along class lines.
It's true that we often hear about gentrification, and people complain when they're priced out of their own communities, but how often do people look deeper than that and ask whether the very concept of economic segregation is acceptable? We denounce the quasi-imperialism of rich areas expanding into middle-class and poor areas, but how often do we hear the very notion of such areas called into question? Not very often, if ever.
We accept the underlying phenomenon without question, perhaps as an inevitable outgrowth of the "free" market - another illusion we accept without question. But obviously there is nothing "free" about a market where your set of options is walled off by what people with more money than you want - if they want it, then you can't have it. And it isn't even that they want it more, merely that the absolute dollar value of their desire outweighs what you are capable of offering, so a desire that might in their case literally be nothing more than an afterthought outweighs what in your case might be a lifelong dream, simply by dollar arithmetic.
The rich thus have the power to completely shut off all possibility of your living in a given area without getting the permission and charity of some individual among them - an indulgence they could cut off or modify for any reason that suits them. In other words, we have a situation that's essentially Manorialism. The rich, becoming physically contiguous, create areas where those with less not only can't live in independently, but usually are not even welcome in as ordinary citizens and consumers: Basically a separate country with separate rules, that keeps expanding and encroaching further into the common space of the people.
And that's bad enough, but it gets worse when you realize that the only way these areas can function economically is by importing workers who can't possibly afford to live there on what they're paid. So these areas suck in economic value from surrounding areas, but then externalize the costs of their lifestyle by forcing their employees to live elsewhere, in areas too far away to benefit from the work they do. The rich get a free ride at the expense of everyone around them, and those who bear the cost are prevented from enjoying the benefits of their labor. Landscapers may spend all day beautifying a community an hour away from where they live, while their own streets are rundown and depressing. A teacher educates the privileged young while the kids of her own community go to some half-prison of a school where they teach burger flipping.
It's just wrong, and has already badly eroded the fabric of American civilization. So I say desegregate. Aggressively. Blend the classes back together, at least in the urbanized areas where that's clearly an issue. Mandate some fraction of all developments is set aside for each and every stratum as a price/rent-controlled bloc, proportionally, and they have to be homogeneously distributed so they can't be segregated into some leper colony. And for fuck's sake, no "poor doors." If a rich person is such a piece of shit they can't bear to mingle with other human beings who happen to have less money than them, they should live out in the boonies, not in the middle of a city.
Either this is one country or it isn't. And if it isn't, let's make it one.
