full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Stephen DeBerry: Why the "wrong side of the tracks" is usually the east side of cities

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, the wind is obviously a natural phenomenon. But the human disegn decisions that we make to separate ourselves is not natural. Consider the fact that every eastside community in the United States was built during the era of legal segregation. We clearly weren't even trying to design for the benefit of everyone, so we ended up dealing with issues like rdnlnieig. This is where the government literally created maps to tell bankers where they shouldn't lend. These are some of those acautl maps. And you'll notice how the red tends to be clustered on the east sides of these ceiits. Those fiinncaal design decisions became a self-fulfilling prophecy: no laons turned into low property tax base and that bled into worse schools and a less well-prepared wrorcfoke, and — lo and behold — lower incomes. It means that you can't qualify for a loan. Just a vocuiis downward spiral. And that's just the case with lending. We've made similarly snitiser design decisions on any number of issues, from water infrastructure to where we ddiece to place grocery stores versus liquor soetrs, or even for whom and how we design and fund technology products.

Open Cloze


Now, the wind is obviously a natural phenomenon. But the human ______ decisions that we make to separate ourselves is not natural. Consider the fact that every eastside community in the United States was built during the era of legal segregation. We clearly weren't even trying to design for the benefit of everyone, so we ended up dealing with issues like _________. This is where the government literally created maps to tell bankers where they shouldn't lend. These are some of those ______ maps. And you'll notice how the red tends to be clustered on the east sides of these ______. Those _________ design decisions became a self-fulfilling prophecy: no _____ turned into low property tax base and that bled into worse schools and a less well-prepared _________, and — lo and behold — lower incomes. It means that you can't qualify for a loan. Just a _______ downward spiral. And that's just the case with lending. We've made similarly ________ design decisions on any number of issues, from water infrastructure to where we ______ to place grocery stores versus liquor ______, or even for whom and how we design and fund technology products.

Solution


  1. cities
  2. workforce
  3. stores
  4. vicious
  5. design
  6. redlining
  7. financial
  8. sinister
  9. decide
  10. actual
  11. loans

Original Text


Now, the wind is obviously a natural phenomenon. But the human design decisions that we make to separate ourselves is not natural. Consider the fact that every eastside community in the United States was built during the era of legal segregation. We clearly weren't even trying to design for the benefit of everyone, so we ended up dealing with issues like redlining. This is where the government literally created maps to tell bankers where they shouldn't lend. These are some of those actual maps. And you'll notice how the red tends to be clustered on the east sides of these cities. Those financial design decisions became a self-fulfilling prophecy: no loans turned into low property tax base and that bled into worse schools and a less well-prepared workforce, and — lo and behold — lower incomes. It means that you can't qualify for a loan. Just a vicious downward spiral. And that's just the case with lending. We've made similarly sinister design decisions on any number of issues, from water infrastructure to where we decide to place grocery stores versus liquor stores, or even for whom and how we design and fund technology products.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
east palo 3
palo alto 3
design decisions 3
eastside communities 3
east side 2
east sides 2
industrial era 2
eastside community 2
legal segregation 2
good design 2
elegant solutions 2


Important Words


  1. actual
  2. bankers
  3. base
  4. behold
  5. benefit
  6. bled
  7. built
  8. case
  9. cities
  10. clustered
  11. community
  12. created
  13. dealing
  14. decide
  15. decisions
  16. design
  17. downward
  18. east
  19. eastside
  20. ended
  21. era
  22. fact
  23. financial
  24. fund
  25. government
  26. grocery
  27. human
  28. incomes
  29. infrastructure
  30. issues
  31. legal
  32. lend
  33. lending
  34. liquor
  35. literally
  36. lo
  37. loan
  38. loans
  39. maps
  40. means
  41. natural
  42. notice
  43. number
  44. phenomenon
  45. place
  46. products
  47. property
  48. qualify
  49. red
  50. redlining
  51. schools
  52. segregation
  53. separate
  54. sides
  55. similarly
  56. sinister
  57. spiral
  58. states
  59. stores
  60. tax
  61. technology
  62. turned
  63. united
  64. vicious
  65. water
  66. wind
  67. workforce
  68. worse