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Comment by dahart | Hacker News Reader

Nearly all parks and libraries and other public places & services in the US are exactly what you describe... there is no such chasm. The reason this article was written is because of one single ugly exception to what is a vast system of public access to community centers, libraries, parks and other open spaces. Please don't make assumptions and jump to the incorrect conclusion that a single example suddenly means that's how it works everywhere.

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I have been to excellent public facilities in the US. Excellence is not evenly distributed anywhere, but the discrepancies of available public services between rich and poor neighbourhoods, between predominantly white and predominantly black neighbourhoods have been stark in my (n=1, granted!) observation of the US.

I think that the reality for the underclass in the US is that in theory, public services, voting, parks, community centres, education, jobs, and so forth are equally available, but that is not how it works in practice.

Excellence is not evenly distributed anywhere in the world including Canada, right? But the goal post seems to be walking away from me a little here. I'd agree that the US has social issues between rich and poor. Weren't we discussing actual stated policy restrictions to public access above? That's what the article is reporting on, and what @Arainach was talking about, isn't it?

What would be the solution to the much bigger problem you're bringing up? Perhaps the problem is that we allow our citizens to become poor in the US, not that we have some of our public facilities located near rich people?

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