The physical and social forms of cities have significant public health consequences. Infrastructure shapes people’s exposure to environmental toxins, natural disasters, and infectious disease. Land use patterns and zoning laws determine whether people have access to healthy food and spaces for physical activity. The design details of streets, buildings, and plazas influence patterns of everyday mobility, mental wellbeing, chronic illness, and violent crime. In this graduate-level seminar, students will prepare for their professional careers as city planners by learning how to design healthier cities. Students will study planning techniques from the past that brought sanitation services and green spaces into urban centers and that created protections against unsafe living and working conditions in industrial contexts. Students will also learn how old environmental concerns are re-emerging today in unexpected forms, and they will study the new urban health risks that are appearing in mega-cities and slum-cities around the world. With this knowledge, students will develop knowledge and skills that will help them effectively assess the health risks associated with various urban forms and to design interventions that can improve human health outcomes in the cities of the future.
Note: This course is pre-approved as a MUD Directed Elective in the Ecology, Landscape, and Sustainability category.
