As far as I can tell, racial segregation is gone—especially with government as a willing participant—thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr and many, many others, not least being virtually the whole of the American people. I, however, don't suggest that all discrimination has disappeared—they're not the same.
 
If we accept one of the basic principles of the founding of this country—that all men are created equal—we cannot accept segregation. The two are completely incompatible.
 
Yet—literally empowered and often mandated by government—we are overall more segregated today than any time in our history. I cannot help but wonder if it is not stretching our social fabric more than racial segregation ever did, but in much more deceptive ways. We are so used to it, I doubt most people ever notice except in brief flashes of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and loneliness.
 

A 'Modern' Neighborhood

Current segregation manifests itself most visibly in our neighborhoods. Prior to the second world war, neighborhoods were traditionally amalgamations of the larger community. It wasn't unusual to have someone renting a garage apartment behind a nice residence (illegal now), or to have a small home around the block from a mansion (unheard of in new construction), or to find a small apartment building or a duplex or townhouse mixed into a neighborhood (nope, not anymore), or to have someone living above their business (very illegal). The only area of the city with exceptions is downtown because it existed before our modern zoning rules, when neighborhoods were naturally mixed-use and multicultural.
 
Today's conventional neighborhoods are stratified not only between the wealthy and poor, but also the "middle class." Even the wealthy neighborhoods are sub-stratified, as are the middle class neighborhoods. For the wealthy, there are several choices: the greater-than-5000-square-feet neighborhoods, the gated-at-night neighborhoods, the Garland-wealthy neighborhoods, the mostly-two-car-garages neighborhoods, the mostly-three-bedroom-houses neighborhoods, and so on. For the so-called middle class, there are the two-car-family neighborhoods, the no-garage-anymore neighborhoods, the no-room-to-park-on-the-street-anymore neighborhoods, the don't-go-out-at-night neighborhoods, and so on. Some are double-segregated, like the you-can't-live-here-unless-you-have-a-car requirement. Any of these might very quickly become a no-kids-live-here-anymore neighborhood. Many are a we-have-a-gardener neighborhood but none are an our-maid-lives-close-by neighborhood.
 
For the most part, each of these neighborhoods is also physically segregated from its surroundings, existing in a pod. Many have very limited access to outside streets or connections to other neighborhoods. Less there being any doubts, development regulations call for a masonry wall around the neighborhood. The pods may rest next to retail and commercial pods but they don't connect except along some roundabout route by way of an arterial street. The pods with jobs are separated from the neighborhood pods so it is extremely difficult to walk to work or to ride a bicycle to work. Streets are constructed to guarantee no one rides a bike and walking is highly discouraged because there are few sidewalks or they have been placed next to the traffic with no protection from the cars, except an occasional fire hydrant.
 
Modern neighborhoods are monocultural and monolithic. To "improve one's situation" means not improving one's property but relocating to a personally more desirable pod that better fits one's self-image or resources. Each time this happens, the neighborhood left behind deteriorates just a bit. The family that considers itself having outgrown the neighborhood is replaced by one just reaching that level. There is zero initiative to invest in a neighborhood by adding more rooms, building a granny-flat over the garage (illegal!), or making any improvements that will be worth only half the cost the day completed. Any realtor can tell you that.
 
Our society is thankfully more racially integrated than anytime in history but we are more socio-economically segregated than ever before. Our segregated single-family housing is further segregated from apartments, condominiums, shopping centers, business parks, stand-along commercial buildings, open spaces and parks, and civic buildings.
 
Many of the posts I've made over the last couple years have dealt with updating the rules so we no longer mandate this type of development, that we allow the marketplace to offer alternatives, and that government be a catalyst for good design and development rather than dictating practices that have divided us into economic strata. It doesn't have to be this way. There are better ways. The question becomes: Will we stay the way we are because we're used to it, or will we challenge the status quo because the alternative is immensely more satisfying and interesting to us as humans?