When
I was a kid and just starting to try and understand the adult world I
used to hear my parents and other grown-ups make what seemed to be
jokes about the "tradesman's entrance."
I eventually
learned that these words were a kind of sexual slang for the anus but
were also more literally "the side or back door of a large
house, used, especially in the past, by people delivering
goods who were not allowed to use the main entrance at the front of
the house."
Now
though, another somewhat similar kind of entry/exit is becoming
common in new apartment blocks in those two western-world
trendsetters cities of New York and London. Tenants in these
buildings must use two different entrances, depending on whether they
live in the cheaper flats or the expensive part of the
accommodation.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio has stated his
opposition to what some of the city's residents have called "poor
doors" although his administration has approved a number that
have already been planned and built.
Arguing in their favour, David
Von Spreckelsen, senior vice president at US property developers Toll
Brothers was reported as saying "You have politicians saying how
horrible these back doors are. I think it’s unfair to expect very
high-income homeowners who paid a fortune to live in their building
to have to be in the same boat as low-income renters, who are very
fortunate to live in a new building in a great neighborhood."
The mayor of London, Boris Johnson is refusing to ban poor doors
despite an increasing number of developments in the English capital
having so-called "alternative access." Even bicycle storage
spaces, rubbish disposal facilities and postal deliveries are also
being separated in some residential complexes.
One argument has been
that doing so keeps construction costs down but in New York there are
financial incentives to include "affordable" flats in the
same location as luxury ones. So it is now apparent that architects
are too often entirely at the mercy of owners and investors and will
do whatever is necessary to keep them happy.
In central
London there is another phenomenon that is becoming more publicised.
Outside several housing buildings and supermarkets, sharp metal
spikes have been put into the concrete in the corner of the doorway
outside, clearly as a way of preventing homeless people from sleeping
there. One charity says this has actually been a common practice for
over a decade and I recently saw a photo of a progressive activist
pouring liquid concrete to cover over these metal studs.
It's
no coincidence that at this very same time the UK Border Agency has
recently admitted that it is working on plans for fast-track passport
lanes for travellers of "high economic value" (ie. rich) at
British airports.
Supposedly this is needed so that they do not have
to wait in the queue like the rest of the species.
I'm not pretending
that there are not more significant problems in our world at this
moment but poor doors, anti-homeless studs and immigration lines that
divide people according to the size of their bank balance are all
symptoms of a sickness, a backward habit of mind.
After all
the public talk is done and the justifications have been made, these
things end up encouraging lesser treatment of those without the good
fortune to be wealthy.
When the smaller details of life of are
changed - doors, queues, public places - it creates less public
resistance to the idea of changing bigger details.
In this way,
schools or health services can be separated along class lines,
without us really noticing.
[This
article was first published in Catalonia
Today magazine, October 2014.]
