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| Rising rents are just one obstacle to opportunity today (Source: Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University) |
Some time ago, First Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids engaged me to do two talks, on justice and social welfare. Since they were scheduled close together, I've treated them as a two-part series, even though I don't think that's how they were conceived, and I'm not even sure I'm doing them in the intended order!
The first talk, "Justice in the World Today," happened August 2, and is described here. Drawing on Biblical and philosophical sources, I argued justice is a condition, in which people get what they deserve (substantive justice), and government officials play by agreed-upon rules (procedural justice). While even procedural justice is critical for marginalized people, because they are the ones who suffer most when things get irregular, social welfare seems to deal most directly with substantive justice. Leaving aside the question of who deserves more, we can agree at least agree that everyone deserves enough to live, the opportunity to improve their lives, and security from threats. (Note that I'm sliding over definitional issues with each of these ideas.)
If we accept all that, then it follows that public policy in a just society should look to the well-being of the poor, the mentally and physically handicapped, and other socially marginalized people. Do they have access to these things they need in life?
If we look upstream from the social problems that surround us, a common element is isolation. Physical isolation is most evident in areas of concentrated poverty, an unfortunate outgrowth of automobile-oriented development that left many areas behind and many people stuck there. Adults have less access to economic opportunities as well as lower life expectancy (Ludwig 2014). Children do less well in life than those raised in more socioeconomically mixed areas (Chetty, Hendren and Katz 2016). In disasters, people suffer most in these areas, as witness studies of the 1995 heat wave in Chicago that found deaths concentrated not just in very poor neighborhoods, but in those very poor neighborhoods where residents lacked access to each other found in places like grocery stores, public libraries, and senior centers (Klinenberg 2003, Helfland 2020). The difficulty of just getting from such neighborhoods to jobs has been dubbed "mobility redlining" by author Steven Higashide (2019: 92).
U.S. transportation policy has exacerbated physical marginalization by severing neighborhoods by building interstate highways through them, as with the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, I-94 in Minneapolis-St.Paul, and even I-380 in Cedar Rapids.
Not all isolation is physical. Homelessness is isolation of a different sort, driven by housing markets and inequality that make any risky personal choices even more costly.
So, while direct provision of resources can deal with emergency situations, for most people on the margins, approaches that help to remove obstacles and build connections are more sustainable for everyone involved.
Encouraging compact development (as opposed to sprawl): the closer people are to the action the more they are likely to benefit
Encouraging local entrepreneurship (as opposed to colonization by out-of-town franchises and in particular big box stores): the more money that stays in the city the more likely it is that everyone benefits
Bringing more money into a city can benefit all its residents if and when that money circulates to support public facilities (the library, swimming pools, &c.) and local businesses.
Connecting areas of concentrated poverty to the rest of the city: ghettos are the result of design, and can only be overcome by design.
- Cycling Without Age, Copenhagen Denmark (Peñalosa 2026). Peñalosa's 880 Cities initiative is named for extreme ages, but his biweekly webinar is aimed at improving access across all manner of obstacles. This episode profiles a group of volunteers that provide trishaw outings for older adults. A similar program exists in Iowa City (J.C. Nesmith 2026).
- Redesigned transit network, Des Moines Iowa (Walker 2026). Walker's firm worked with Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority to improve ridership while cutting costs by 10 percent. Among other things, they got frequency down to every 15 minutes in central Des Moines and Windsor Heights, and the number of jobs available within 45 minutes' ride is up by 15 percent.
- Plant trees (Galle 2026). Not only do trees provide shade during heat waves, Nadina Galle summarizes health research that has found more trees related to heart health, neonatal outcomes, children's mental health, and health care spending.
- Housing (Strong Towns n.d.). Housing supply and cost are increasingly problematic, because many families are invested in the value of their house, zoning barriers price out small developers, and large developments carry risk both in the present and future. So, cities can help by enabling small, incremental development in their town. (See also Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn's latest book, Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis [co-authored with Daniel Herriges, Wiley, 2024]).
- Housing First (McLean 2023, Kristof 2023, Ionescu 2023, Holder 2023). Cities like Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Denver have reduced their unhoused population by providing housing and following up with intensive support services. (Improvement is measurable, but the effort involved is admittedly intense, and the effects may not be noticeable to the casual observer.)
