Urban Sprawl and Public Health: Designing, Planning, and Building for Healthy Communities - Softcover

Frumkin, Howard; Frank, Lawrence; Jackson, Richard J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1559633050 ISBN 13: 9781559633055

Publisher: Island Press, 2004

Synopsis

In Urban Sprawl and Public Health, Howard Frumkin, Lawrence Frank, and Richard Jackson, three of the nation's leading public health and urban planning experts explore an intriguing question: How does the physical environment in which we live affect our health? For decades, growth and development in our communities has been of the low-density, automobile-dependent type known as sprawl. The authors examine the direct and indirect impacts of sprawl on human health and well-being, and discuss the prospects for improving public health through alternative approaches to design, land use, and transportation.

Urban Sprawl and Public Health offers a comprehensive look at the interface of urban planning, architecture, transportation, community design, and public health. It summarizes the evidence linking adverse health outcomes with sprawling development, and outlines the complex challenges of developing policy that promotes and protects public health. Anyone concerned with issues of public health, urban planning, transportation, architecture, or the environment will want to read Urban Sprawl and Public Health.

About this title

About the Author:

Howard Frumkin is Dean of the University of Washington’s School of Public Health. Richard Jacksonis Chair of Environmental Health Sciences at University of California Los Angeles. Larry Frank is Bombadier Chair in Sustainable Transportation Systems at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.

Review:

"Years ago, we could see that the correlation between sprawl and poor health should be made. Now it is done. Urban Sprawl and Public Healthdetails how our lifestyle leads to serious health problems. This book should be reviewed widely and its facts should be known by all of us. It will be one of the central texts of the New Urbanism." (Andres Duany author of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream)

"Suburban sprawl is killing us. Increasingly, physicians, public health officials, planners, and designers recognize the relationships between our health and our built surroundings. Urban Sprawl and Public Health offers a cogent diagnosis of this health menace as well as timely prescriptions for healing our cities." (Frederick Steiner dean, School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin)

"A growing body of research demonstrates that community design and our built environment have enormous potential for addressing many of our chief public health concerns. The authors convincingly argue that building a healthier future is not only possible, but essential." (Georges C. Benjamin MD, FACP, executive director, APHA)

About this edition

• Publisher: Island Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1559633050
• ISBN 13: 9781559633055
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368