Reconstructing Integration

Abstract

Abstract This chapter takes up the question whether any anti-segregation strategy is morally and politically legitimate. It reviews competing conceptions of desegregation and integration and arguments supporting each, especially arguments against integration. The chapter argues that societies have a moral and political duty to desegregate and that standard models of integration are inadequate. There is no moral imperative to engineer demographically even neighborhoods and cities. Likewise, the expectation that poor residents of underresourced neighborhoods must integrate is illegitimate. All the same, every neighborhood, city, and region should be open; individuals and families should have fair and equal opportunities to access housing in those communities, towns, and cities. From the vantage point of liberals committed to reconstructive justice, integration is nearly synonymous with open communities and opportunities. This is a legitimate and just version of integration and a vision of integration as national reconstruction.