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Jiro comments on Open thread, Mar. 16 - Mar. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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What's the difference? (This is a serious question. Of course, I know some reasons why people think they are different, but I don't think the reasons that I can think of stand up to examination.)
If you design a system, then you can optimize it for different goals. A designer that's supposed to design a public space signs a contract. To the extend that the designer optimizes for different goals and especially goals that disadvantage certain people he's doing wrong.
From the perspective of a city written into the contract that the space is designed against homelessness also makes a difference.
That only moves the question up a level: why is it wrong to do X as your goal, but okay to do X in service of something else, even if that something else is as vague as aesthetic reasons or whatever impels people to randomly design things? By your initial reasoning, it would be wrong to design spikes to discourage the homeless, but okay to design spikes if you just happen to like the look of spikes, even though both of these have the same effect.
Because intentions matter for judge morality of a lot of human interactions. If a professional is hired for a specific purpose, it's important that the professional doesn't use the power of his role to push his personal agenda.
The spikes make the place worse for the intended users than it would be if the designers just ignored the homeless in this place and build a better place for them nearby.
That doesn't explain the difference. Just ignoring the homeless can include building things that happen to discourage the homeless but are put there for other reasons. If so, then ignoring them and being hostile to them can produce the same result.