Week 4A- Life, Death and Disease in the City

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Living within a city holds opportunities, vitality and prospects, that being said, vast sizes of population compared to rural living obviously hold risk of poverty and disease.

How do cities prevent disease and filth? What needs to be considered in any case study of epidemic illness or plague within a city is why and how the issue is coming alight. Hebbert has claimed that ‘public health and town planning are blood brothers’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 433) in some cases this is extremely true, and to plan a city is to keep away its citizens from partial dangers or unsanitary areas. Fresh air was brought to light as a main concern on the health of citizens in a city, obviously a revelation on keeping residential areas next to rotting organic matter and closed space areas such as blind alleys created a ‘concentration of sickness and death’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 434), these gases were said to be ‘actual poison’ (Health of Towns Association, 1846) to the human health, has changed the ventilation health within cities, thus town planning must come in as a solution to the accumulation of filth and plays an extremely important role in health of civilians within the cities. ‘A free blow through’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 434) forced town planners to engage in ‘open streets’ (Hebbert 1999 pg. 434), the Grid approach in town planning is a very good example of this, the movement to encourage ventilation and natural light through the vast area of a city, opening streets at all ends of the city allows the free flow of air and pollution out of the city (Kostof, 1991).

Ventilation is not the only cause for disease within a city; a good example of this is the great plague of London in 1665, saw a vast uproar in rats carrying disease-ridden fleas, feeding off filth and human waste in the city (Lloyd Moote, 2004). Life within this time in a city encouraged dense living conditions and the first areas affected by the plague were the poorer districts, a large demand in living space encouraged landlords to create ‘dense development’ (Hebbert 1999 pg. 434). Rats were attracted to the filth of pollution and human waste within the cramped slums of London; this again results back to poor town planning. Living within population dense, poorly curated areas of pollution breeds the chance of poverty and disease, each and every individual living in these areas are more likely to come into contact with others who have the disease or a disease carrying vesicle. Encouraging an environment to thrive that induces disease to spread and flourish was a clear issue in early town development.  The great fire of 1666 saw a fairly successful solution to the pandemic of disease within London and it was chance for a ‘healthier’ town planning to arise (Hebbert 1999 pg. 435). The importance of city scape and urban development was projected to cut the death rate by a third, therefore encouraging Vitruvius’ (Hebbert 1999, pg 435) significance to alignment within the city and implementing sanitary norms directly contributed to the decrease in disease.  

 

Health concerns within a city does not always have to be physical. With a shift in ventilated, open street cities and sanitary norms individuals bring a light a different kind of illness within cities in the early 1900s. Mental stability and wellness can be associated with nature, water and greenery. The ‘garden City’ approach aimed to instantaneously link physical wellbeing and mental health within the city by encouraging interactive spaces, for example parks and green spaces within the city can allow for individuals to be exposed to the benefits of green spaces, as mentioned above, as well as utilize them for healthy interactions or exercise within a city that can sometimes feel isolating. This encourages a weighted importance for urban planners to refer to a ‘Garden City’ as a healthier approach to the mental wellbeing of citizens. Encouraging cities full of playgrounds, gardens and parks was seen to allow individuals to have ‘informal grouping around green space’ (Hebbert, 1999 pg. 239) increasing the sociability within a city with careful town planning and spaces that invite individuals to congregate can heavily encourage the amiability and mental wellbeing of the city dwellers.

 

A large portion of city health had been focused on physical layout of the city, Sir Francis Galton shifted the focus from the environmental city itself to the actually citizens within the city. In 1908 he founded the Eugenics Society, which in short aimed to encourage the genetic quality by urging individuals with desired characteristics to procreate. (Hebbert, 1999, pg 443) This ideology pushes that the environment is not to blame for wellbeing in the city but much rather population is able to create individuals that are born ‘healthy’. Although this may sound like it would benefit population as a whole, in the early implementation of eugenics a tendency for forced sterilization was extremely mentally detrimental for citizens (Murdock 1974), although the population as a whole would be rid of these ‘undesirable characters’ the effect on health to individuals was huge and a promotion of these unethical procedures begins to build as a culture in cities creating social segregation and self induced superiority.

It is clear that urban planning plays a large role in the mental and physical wellbeing within the public of cities. To produce an ‘ideal city’ free of illness of all kinds to citizens, many factors including appropriate disposal of waste, suitable density of living, ventilation and spaces that encourage movement and sociability need to be considered in the placement of the city. Obviously as our society develops and changes new problems within urbanized cities, which have not been seen as important prior, arise and therefore it is left to planners to find a solution to issues whilst aiming to produce city spaces with ‘various functioning part’ (Mumford, 1938).

References:

A.     Lloyd Moote, ‘The Great Plague: The story of London’s most deadly Year’ 2004

Charles W. Murdock, ‘Steilizaion of the Retarded: A Problem or a Solution?’ California Law Review: Vol. 62. 1974

Health of Towns Association (Pamphlet), ‘Why are towns Unhealthy?’ Health of Towns Association Manchaster and Salford, 1846

Michael Hebbert, ‘A City in Good Shape: Town Planning and public Health’ Town Planning Review 70 (4) 1999, pp. 443-453

Lewis Mumford, ‘The Culture of Cities’, London, Martin Secker & Warburg, 1938

Spiro Kostof, ‘The Grid’ in Kostof, The City shaped London: Thames and Hudson, 1991 pp. 95-123

Fig 1. The Vitruvian Man. 2015. The Vitruvian Man. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.vivamalta.net/VMforum/index.php?topic=4428.0. [Accessed 26 March 2015]

 Fig 2. Ebenezer Howard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2015. Ebenezer Howard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Howard. [Accessed 26 March 2015].