316
Opinion of the Court
ment be placed on different sides of the line, and the fact [that] the line might have been drawn differently at some points is a matter for legislative, rather than judicial, consideration." Ibid. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The distinction at issue here represents such a line: By excluding from the definition of "cable system" those facilities that serve commonly owned or managed buildings without using public rights-of-way, § 602(7)(B) delineates the bounds of the regulatory field. Such scope-of-coverage provisions are unavoidable components of most economic or social legislation. In establishing the franchise requirement, Congress had to draw the line somewhere; it had to choose which facilities to franchise. This necessity renders the precise coordinates of the resulting legislative judgment virtually unreviewable, since the legislature must be allowed leeway to approach a perceived problem incrementally. See, e. g., Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483 (1955):
"The problem of legislative classification is a perennial one, admitting of no doctrinaire definition. Evils in the same field may be of different dimensions and proportions, requiring different remedies. Or so the legislature may think. Or the reform may take one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind. The legislature may select one phase of one field and apply a remedy there, neglecting the others. The prohibition of the Equal Protection Clause goes no further than the invidious discrimination." Id., at 489 (citations omitted).7
7 See also Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 485 (1970) (classification does not violate equal protection simply because it "is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality") (internal quotation marks omitted); Metropolis Theatre Co. v. Chicago, 228 U. S. 61, 69-70 (1913) ("The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations—illogical, it may be, and unscientific"); Heath & Milligan Mfg. Co. v. Worst, 207
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