Abstract

Our Fortified Ghettos

According to the author, fortification epitomizes the ghetto in the U.S. Buildings grow claws and spikes, their entrances acquire metal plates, their roofs get fenced in, and any additional openings are sealed, cutting down on light and ventilation. Glass windowpanes in first-floor windows are rare. Instead, window openings are bricked in or fitted with glass bricks. In schools and in buses, plexiglass, frosty with scratches, blurs the view outside. Even in areas where statistics show a decrease in major crime fortification continues to escalate, and as it does, ghettos lose their coherence. Neighborhoods are replaced by a random assortment of isolated bunkers, structures that increasingly resemble jails or power stations, their interiors effectively separated from the outside.