To some planners and builders accessibility merely implies that disabled people can get into a building through an entrance without steps and can use a toilet. This definition does not say anything about which entrance we are to use, and where the toilet is located. We are tired of entering restaurants through the kitchen, museums through the basement, or hotels through the rear, passing truckloads of dirty laundry. The international symbol of access that assigns us to these entrances is the symbol that we are treated as second class citizens. Mainstreaming, the current popular American word for integration, means using the main entrance, not the back door.
Accessibility has to be non-discriminatory.
This implies that design elements that make us needlessly dependent upon other people have to be eliminated. This is, of course, nonsense, but the example shows how prejudice or sloppy thinking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies. I have presented what I think are the main prerequisites for independent living for the disabled as equal members of the community. As I have tried to show, one of the main ingredients in living independently in the community is to have alternatives. In order to develop choices we, the consumers, have to identify our needs and participate in developing solutions and in determining the criteria for the evaluation of these solutions.