Week 4 - The Built Environment as Disabling

French, Sally (1993). What’s so great about independence?, pp 44-48 in John Swain, Vic Finkelstein, Sally French and Mike Oliver (eds.). Disabling Barriers —Enabling Environments (London: Sage).

Gleeson, Brendan (1999). Can technology overcome the disabling city? pp 98-118 in Ruth Butler and Hester Parr (eds.). Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairment and Disability (N.Y.: Routledge).

Imrie, Rob (1998). Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment, pp 129-46 in Tom Shakespeare (ed.). The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives (London, Cassell).

This articles assigned discuss how there is a barrier in society that stops disabled people from moving through life and accomplishing what they need to. They discussed independence and why it is important that we be independent; the different technologies that may/may not benefit disabled people, and how buildings are built with accessibility worked into the building design, all of these are explained in relation to how they affect a disabled person’s life on a day to day basis. The first article What’s so great about independence? discusses how independence is something all disabled people are told to attain, and people assume that a non disabled person in independent. All people are dependent in one way or another no matter age, race or capabilities, an example of this is as a student with no car I rely on the bus to show up and get me to school on time. When a person is pressured to be independent they are also pressured to conform to the norms of society. An example of this would be when my father goes out in public in the summer he likes to wear long pants so that he does not have numerous people gawking at his prosthetic leg, he does not like drawing attention to it and it is still fairly new for him, by covering up his leg he feels normal.

The second article Can technology overcome the disabling city? discusses how people believe that new technologies can cure disabilities, and will help a person become a ‘normal’ member of society, the problem with this idea is many people do not have access to the technologies. The built environment is made to suit the average person; some of the things that cause a disabled person to not access the built environment are broken surfaces that reduce the use of devices, entry into buildings with stairs and manual doors, public transportation, and public information such as signs. An example of this is a hockey rink in Toronto, built within the last 5 years, the arena parking lot had handicap parking, automatic door openers, to get to the doors there was no causing someone in a wheelchair to have to find another way into the building, they could not access the building on their own. This makes a person feel dependent and incapable of completing tasks. If disabled people had proper access to buildings they may have better chances of getting jobs that suit them. Many countries around the world are working to better society and the built environment, New Zealand is being met with a great deal of resistance, and Germany has set an ‘obligation of employers to employ severely disabled persons’.

The third article titled Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment discusses how accessibility for disabled people in public places has became a prominent issue in past decades, not everything in society is adapted so disabled people can access them. Schools for Architects teach the bare minimum about making a building presentable as well as fully accessible. Cities have been built with a certain person in mind and that is the male who is about six feet tall, muscular, and is able bodied both mentally and physically. It is interesting that in Canada where we are supposedly trying to help the disabled access the places they need, and many people are not aware of the term wheelchair accessible. In 2006 my father was looking for an apartment in Toronto that was accessible, because at the time he was in a wheelchair, when I called numerous apartments about accessibility I was met with answers such as “umm . . . yes . . . I think so?”, “what does that mean?”, “well yes but we have two steps into the building”. These people it seems were rarely in contact with disabled people and had a sense of sameness, just as the Architects. There has been a great increase in making the built environment accessible, but there is still plenty to do.

The articles tie in to the topic of independence in our society, disabled people, especially those using a device do not have the ability to access all buildings to complete daily tasks. The articles look at the ways in which an individual is unable to become an active and ‘normal’ member in society. Independence is not possible for people to attain whether they are disabled or non disabled because we all rely on others to help us live our daily lives. Disabled people are no more dependent than non disabled people. These articles support each other and the fact that many places in public are not accessible. Being able to access any building is important to a disabled person because it gives them freedom and many possibilities especially for employment. These articles were very helpful to further my understanding of disability. As a non disabled person I cannot truly feel how a disabled person in society feels when they cannot access a certain building, or how they feel when they ask for assistance. By seeing how society is stuck on the image of the ‘normal’ person, I can see why many people are being left out of this ideal. Now that my father is classified as a disabled person and uses a wheelchair on occasion and a prosthetic leg on most occasions, I am given a better insight to the way disabled people struggle to access basic parts of life that most access easily and take for granted. Companies should be looking to include accessibility when opening a store or make old locations accessible. With much of society being accessible other parts that are not as accessible are trying to lure the disabled in by giving them a device to make shopping easier. Some stores are accessible through the main door and have two levels but no elevator, instead they have a moving sidewalk in this case the store has employees standing at the top and bottom of the escalator to assist people to the upper or lower level, they are not able to access the other half of the store by themselves, which limits their freedom. Accessibility is an issue that needs to be taken more seriously and put as a major political concern.