In the United States as well as in Germany, an array of different regulations tries to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to buildings, services, and information. The ADA Standards for Accessible Design, Architectural Barriers as well as the Fair Housing Act require accessible routes, ramps, doors, signage, and more. But are these regulations sufficient? And rigorously implemented?
A collective 50.3 million people with disabilities across the U.S. and Germany need urban planning and an architecture that allows them to access streets, parks, buildings, and public transportation the same way as people without disabilities. Are they part of our city development conversations? Are sufficient funds and monitoring systems available to ensure that, for example, broken automated doors and elevators are fixed immediately? What is needed to create an inclusive future, a future that serves our entire community?
Together, at The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, we discussed ways to reimagine our cities to be inclusive to ALL. Featuring disability rights activist and content creator Annie Segarra, urbanist and content creator Jon Jon Wesolowski, a.k.a. "The Happy Urbanist", disability rights activist and artist Moira Williams, and Warren Shaw, attorney, activist, historian, and son of Disability Rights Movement pioneers Mollie and Julius Shaw.
Photos: Sarah Blesener
Biographies
Annie Segarra is a dedicated activist, content creator, and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. Living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, she is well-known for her advocacy work in disability rights, body positivity, and social justice, using her engaging videos and insightful discussions to raise awareness. With a powerful voice and a commitment to inclusivity, Annie strives to make the world a more accepting and accessible place for everyone. Her work continues to challenge norms, celebrate diversity, and inspire meaningful change, particularly in the realm of chronic illness and disability activism.
Jon Jon Wesolowski is an avid urbanist, national speaker, and content creator passionate about decoding what makes spaces great. His TikTok channels have amassed over 8.6 million likes and 406k followers. After spending eight months abroad exploring cities, he is now running for City Council in his hometown of Chattanooga, TN, as a strong advocate for local involvement.
Warren Shaw was born and raised in the New York City Disability Rights Movement. His parents, Mollie and Julius Shaw, were well-known physically disabled activists who helped pioneer the movement during the 1960s and 1970s.
A writer, professor, practicing attorney and activist, Warren has worked in the field of New York City history for forty years. He has published hundreds of articles and appeared on dozens of television and radio broadcasts discussing New York City’s political, architectural and cultural history and policy. But his primary concentration has been disability. A multi-volume history of disability activism is under way; the working title is “Never Stand Alone: Tales Of The Ancestors.” Please visit Warren’s website, www.DisabilityHistoryNYC.com for more information.
Moira Williams (they/them) is a disabled artist, disability cultural activist, access doula, curator and dreamer of Lenape, Kickapoo and Sami descent. Moira’s porous ways of celebrating and being in relationship with their Indigenous and disabled ancestors, with the land and with their constellation of disabilities centers abundance rather than scarcity.
They often co-create with bodies of water and people to unsettle ableist and ecological boundaries between bodies by imagining “ecological intimacy” as an expansion of Mia Mingus’s “access intimacy.” Moira does this as a way to open relational ways of being and thinking that include our bodymind-spirits, multispecies and mutual empathy towards breaking away from colonial technologies and ableisms shaping human relationships, our bodies and land relationships. Moira has received a New York Humanities Grant, Movement Research AMP Fellowship, Disability + DANCE NYC Social Justice Fellowships, Leonardo Crip Tech Fellowship, a United States Artists Disability Futures Fund. Their work has been at Tangled Arts + Disability Gallery, Toronto, CUE Art Foundation and MoMA PS1 in New York City, Landscape Research, UK and ARoS Museum, Denmark.