Disability Justice and Urban Planning

Abstract

How did we get here? Kneeling close to the floor, gently and (care)fully placing my daughter ’ s body onto a beach towel we brought with us … again, because we have learned, through repeat exposure to unimaginatively produced, broken, and ableist design and infrastructure, to expect to have to change her on the dirty floor of a public bathroom EVERY time we venture out into the city. Leaving the house with our disabled child has become a mind-bending logistical puzzle, and venturing out into the world, an act of resistance. We resist the temptation to simply disappear, to avoid the rows of staring eyes. We resist the temptation to simply give in to the exhaustion of resisting – and the unseen labour of trying to re-imagine, re-work, make work public infrastructure(s) designed and installed without having “ us ” in mind. Who is “ us ” ? We are just one family, one group of bodies of the many bodies out there disabled by “ them, ” the makers of this place. One assemblage of bodies, materials, and resources that does not fit the mold of the so-called neo-liberal “ able ” body – a body that can pee standing up or sitting down, a body that can leak with limited concern for where and when this happens, a body that can move freely in the spaces designed for it. And so, here we are again, alone in this place, the floor of a broken public restroom, pouring our love, our energy, and care into our child ’ s life, to make, for her and for us, a day that we will recall later as being one of our greatest adventures. association into the to be trouble receiving ADA have the the form I to fit an archaic not into neurotypical normalcy.