Anti-homeless Hostile Design as Wrongful Discrimination
New article by Andreas Albertsen i collaboration with Carl Knight (University of Glasgow) published in British Journal of Political Science
![[Translate to English:] Frontpage of British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press](/fileadmin/_processed_/4/f/csm_british-journal-of-political-science_eb24e62195.jpg "[Translate to English:] British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press")
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 55 , 2025 , e118
When the city expels the homeless, it is discrimination. All over the world, public space is made less accessible for the homeless who live their lives on the street. An armrest in the middle of a bench prevents one from sleeping there. A door removed from the station shelter makes it cold at night. A window sill equipped with spikes means it no longer offers rest and shelter. Exclusionary design is gaining ground. Many find it certainly problematic. If they even notice it. But how should we think more philosophically about these measures? This question is addressed by Andreas Albertsen together with Carl Knight from the University of Glasgow in an article just published in the renowned journal British Journal of Political Science. Albertsen and Knight argue that a number of examples of exclusionary design can be categorized as discriminatory, and that they seem to be wrong for the same reasons that more typical examples of discrimination are wrong.
Abstract
Philosophical accounts of discrimination distinguish the question of what discrimination is from the question of its wrongfulness. This article addresses these two questions in the context of anti-homeless hostile design of public spaces. Regarding the first question, all forms of anti-homeless hostile design amount to discrimination, with typical cases (for example, anti-homeless spikes or benches) being direct discrimination, but with some cases (for example, CCTV not intended to target the homeless) being indirect discrimination. Regarding the second question, it is argued that all major accounts of the wrongness of discrimination identify the usual, directly discriminatory hostile design as wrongful on account of its harmful or disrespectful character. Most accounts also consider the less common indirectly discriminatory hostile design to be possibly wrongful, especially given the severe disadvantages faced by the homeless in contemporary cities.