Perspective
In Coronavirus, the U.S. Faces a Problem It Can’t Fix by Segregation
For decades, the U.S. has used spatial barricades to isolate advantaged people from serious social ills. To defeat Covid-19, that won’t work.
Since the 1970s, the United States has relied on one primary strategy to deal with poverty, pollution, and various other social problems and challenges: quarantine. We have carved up cities and communities with spatial barricades, built fortified enclaves for the affluent, and pursued solutions that relied on segregating the haves from the problems of the have-nots.
Now comes the coronavirus, a crisis that refuses to be contained by the barriers we’ve built. (Indeed, because of its connection to international airline travel, it alighted in the booming global cities first.) In a nation that has learned to solve problems by trying to isolate them in space, how can we come together to defeat this virus?