# The Successful Man's Burden

It used to be that people would measure skulls to figure out if they were [inferior.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology)

Well, it was a really racist thing that people *kind of* stopped doing. Nobody breaks out the calipers and says, "let me look at your bone structure."

# There Goes The Neighborhood

A lot of people in this town want to be able to choose who gets to live in their neighborhood. A lot of them are worried about the "wrong" kind of people making it in.

They *assume* that a person who can afford a down payment on a single-family home is more trustworthy than someone who can't.

So they live in a single-family neighborhood, and they don't want that neighborhood to be more affordable. If their neighbors build apartments nearby, well - now *anyone* can move in, even poor people.

And of course, they fear poor people. And some of them use that to justify this segregation between the classes.

# Anywhere But Here

And of course, on some level we all know that locking poor people out just makes it worse.

I can show [Brookings' Community Safety Blueprint](https://www.brookings.edu/essay/a-new-community-safety-blueprint-how-the-federal-government-can-address-violence-and-harm-through-a-public-health-approach/). I can show them that you *reduce* violence by getting rid of this class segregation.

That there are plenty of job opportunities in Windsor, and that these employment opportunities will help.

And they're afraid of people with mental illnesses, but we can invest in a good public health program that have already been tried-and-tested everywhere else.

But then people say,

"Well, build that first! And then we'll talk about de-segregating"

And then I go to other people and say, "hey let's build these public health programs in this town"

And then they say, "Why are we building things for poor people who aren't even here yet? Let's wait for them to come here first!"

This vicious cycle of apathy ends with nothing getting done.