A drone photographer traveled the world to capture the lines that divide us.
Cities often shield us from the embarrassing reminder that some people are significantly better off than others. Through market forces and deliberate policies like zoning, neighborhoods and communities can become so economically segregated that we are allowed to forget.
For Unequal Scenes, drone photographer Johnny Miller traveled the world to remind and embarrass us. His images force us to confront the bright lines separating haves from have-nots.
Many of Miller’s scenes were captured in the Global South, where informal settlements often press up against planned neighborhoods. The ocean of blue roofs in Mumbai’s poorer neighborhoods are almost charming, until you realize that many are plastic tarps shielding the impoverished residents underneath from rain. The chaotic scattering of metal roofs in cities like Nairobi, Durban, or Johannesburg are juxtaposed against lush golf courses and precisely laid-out residential neighborhoods. At street level, these contrasts become especially visible in the finished and unfinished structures of Mexico City.
Mumbai 
Nairobi 
Johannesburg 
Durban 
Mexico City
Yet some of Miller’s most dramatic scenes unfold closer to home, like in the empty lots that pock Detroit’s decimated neighborhoods. Dividing walls separate us from these realities. Some are made of brick. Others are made of cars, rushing down the urban highways that carve into American cities all the way from Baltimore to Southern California. Behind these walls we find evidence of so many broken dreams, like affordable housing.
Detroit 
Detroit 
Detroit 
Southern California 
Baltimore 
Baltimore 
Baltimore
The staggering visual representations of economic inequality captured by Johnny Miller raise important questions. How much do our communities depend on the contributions of both high- and low-wage workers? How much should the wages for a hard-day’s work be allowed to vary from one worker to another?
These questions are as relevant for communities in the United States as they are for those of the Global South.
For more of these images, follow Johnny Miller on Instagram @millefotosa.
