to which I would add, Buffalo LRT was deliberately prevented from actually entering a mall precisely to prevent easy access from "those people" (whoever they might be) which resulted one morning in a nasty traffic accident as a worker was hit crossing the highway from transit to the mall.

The major shift of office jobs to the 'burbs (later dubbed Edge Cities) may not have been a deliberate effort to eliminate applications from urban (transit dependent) residents, but the result was clear.
As long as the 1% can scapegoat the abject poor in the eyes of the working poor, nothing will get fixed.