We Don't Know Nearly As Much About the Link Between Public Health and Urban Planning As We Think We Do

By EMILY BADGER, The Atlantic Cities

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But there's growing concern that the communities we've built – full of highways, where few people walk, where whole neighborhoods lack food access – may be pushing us towards obesity, heart disease, and asthma. By this thinking, good architecture and urban planning could encourage us to walk more. It could mitigate pollution. It could illuminate the targeted need for amenities like parks and bike lanes in neighborhoods with the worst health outcomes.
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When Americans think of health, we instinctively see in our mind’s eye the medical profession and the hospitals and clinics in which they treat illness. We usually do not think of architects and other design professionals. But what if we invited designers to help us reinvent aspects of preventive medicine? What if we adopted design strategies that lead to less sedentary lifestyles? [- Robert Ivy, the CEO of the American Institute of Architects]
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<a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/12/much-what-we-know-about-public-health-and-urban-planning-wrong/7886/">http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/12/much-what-we-know-about-public-health-and-urban-planning-wrong/7886/</a>;

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