ARCHITECTURE

Introduction
What is inequality? Or better, how does it work? This report
sketches a partial answer to these questions in architectural
terms, specifically those related to housing.
By “inequality” we mean not only the measurable socioeconomic
gap that separates the very wealthy from the
very poor, but also a seemingly endless chain of inequities
around which both individuals and social groups hold
conflicting interests. This report only addresses a small
subset of these, mostly centered on economic disparities,
but with a close eye on how they link with others: structural
racism, gender discrimination, and other exclusions
or expulsions that are internal (that is, built-in) to the
American housing system.
We focus on the United States, leaving implicit
the many ways in which specific forms of socioeconomic
inequality predominant in American cities, suburbs, and
towns fundamentally relate to others elsewhere. As its subheading
suggests, this is by no means a definitive document.
It is a provisional report compiled on behalf of colleagues
and students in the field of architecture, but it is for anyone
who may be struggling to grasp concretely certain key
facts that shape social and economic life. Among the facts
we have outlined are the numbers, captured in the slogans
referring to “the 1%” (the ruling elites) or “the 99%” (everyone
else), that reveal the starkest of disparities. At the same
time, these numbers conceal others that run up, down, and
sideways across the socioeconomic spectrum. Housing, understood
as the material, social, institutional, and economic
process that determines where members of a society sleep
at night—where they live and love, and perhaps where they
die—cuts an important cross-section through the dominant
patterns. But like other instances of inequality, housing is
not just an indicator of deeper trends; it consists of techniques
that contribute to and perpetuate the very conflicts
that it might seem only to reflect. In other words (to misuse
a well-known phrase), housing is a verb; it does things as
well as represents them. This is what allows us to speak of
something like a housing system: a dynamic set of relations,
a portion of which this report sketches via the logic and the
“laws” of real estate development.
We therefore aim to show some of the ways in
which real estate development effectively writes the laws
that govern the American housing system. The report’s
title, The Art of Inequality, emphasizes that far from being
objectively given, these laws are pieces of artifice that
amount to a way of governing, as in the expression “the art
of governing.” Insurmountable housing disparities are not
a historical accident, nor are they merely the unintended
side effect of well-meaning policies and practices. They are
designed, built into the system by which housing is produced
and maintained in the first place. Architecture matters
here precisely for this reason. For it too does not come
after economic forces (those mysterious representatives
of “the economy”) have done their work. Architecture actively
participates at every step, simply because there is no
housing without architecture, however humbly defined or
constrained its authors—architects, designers, policymakers,
developers, bankers, residents, etc.—may feel.
Yes, it does seem today that everyone is talking
about inequality. But perhaps that is because inequality is
everywhere. Political standoffs between incentivized luxury
development and rent regulation run parallel with a litany
of racial violence that, in turn, reflects the role of both
race and space in determining economic outcomes. Newspapers
lament gentrification while featuring lush advertisements
for improbable dwellings populated by two-parent,
three-child families who seem only ever to be waiting for
the guests to arrive. Housing is analyzed daily for its role in
construction starts, mortgage interest rates, and home values’
growth or decline, with its artfulness largely relegated
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