Building American Public Health : Urban Planning, Architecture, and the Quest for Better Health in the United States

This historical study looks at how reformers have used urban planning and architecture to improve the health of urban residents of the United States. This historical study looks at how reformers have used urban planning and architecture to improve the health of urban residents of the United States. It begins in the nineteenth century, when problems in rapidly urbanizing cities threatened to overwhelm cities, and then traces the development and impact of reform movements up through the First World War, including discussions of model tenements, the 'city beautiful' movement, tenement laws, and zoning and building codes. Midcentury design movements, such as new efforts to plan suburbs and Modernism, along with outlines of the impacts of public housing, highway building, and urban renewal, are the focus of the middle chapters of the book. The final third examines the revival of cities and the reconnection of public health with urban planning that occurred as the twentieth century ended "From the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century to the rise of the obesity epidemic after 1980, a long series of reformers and advocates have sought to protect and promote health by manipulating how we build housing and neighborhoods. This book is a history of using urban planning and architecture to better public health in the United States. It highlights the work of tenement reformers, zoning advocates, modernist architects, new urbanists, and members of the new built environment and health movement, among others, to improve the health and social conditions of their time by modifying the environment around them"--Provided by publisher The Urban Crisis Begins The Age of Reform Housing Laws, Zoning, and Building Codes Building a Suburban Utopia The Lessons of Modernism Public Housing Urban Renewal and Highway Construction Decline and Rise A New Age of Cities and Health Future Trends and Needs This Historical Study Looks At How Reformers Have Used Urban Planning And Architecture To Improve The Health Of Urban Residents Of The United States. By Russell Lopez.