December 12th, 2017
Over the past decade, we have witnessed the rebirth of an important relationship between urban planning and public health. Urban planning was itself a health response to poor living conditions in the urban settlements of the early industrial era. It is indeed perplexing how far planning drifted away from its century-old public health roots. Plagued by overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and industrial pollution, planners created building regulations such as NewYork City’s Tenement HouseAct of 1901, put in place “Euclidian” zoning to separate smokestacks from homes and developed “garden cities” and “streetcar suburbs” as a refuge from city life that was, at the time, rather noxious and noisy. Early planners like Frederick Law Olmsted were very clear about the connection between planning and health and the need to mitigate poor public health conditions in urban centers.