INSIDE DISABILITY JUSTICE
Your welcome attention to “disability justice” in your Fall 2014 print issue found me recovering from a year’s bout with cancer and facing the new experience of using a wheelchair, rollator, and cane for post-hospital getting around in New York City. Not only am I now more empathetic with the debilitating effects of illness; I am also newly grateful for those pioneers of urban transportation that make my city livable for the disabled: beveled curbs, buses with easy wheelchair access, subways with seats, and laws that favor the disabled. These facilities are examples of clearing away structural barriers to justice in urban life. Along with this, I find, goes the readiness of many fellow riders to vacate a seat for someone in a wheelchair or carrying a cane. Turns out that Tom Shakespeare’s quote from Jean Vanier has implications for both the architecture and the culture of...
