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by Sean Zhuang | ed. Fazila Olaniyan
The world we see today is undoubtedly a combination of design, engineering and plenty of human ingenuity. However, health has almost always been at the forefront, it has irrefutably played a role in urban development and planning.
Let us turn our heads back to urban planning in Europe and USA, during the 19th and early 20th century, where infectious diseases were rife. Perhaps the most significant event during this term was the Industrial Revolution, characterised by densely populated housing that was close to factories, farms and slaughter houses. Little airflow or light was available. Back then, there was limited knowledge on infectious disease and we still relied on concepts from Hippocrates. He described miasmas, which are like a “corruption of the air”, and that was theorised to spread disease.
The concept of miasmas was not new. In the 1700s, prisoners in Britain were becoming extremely sick, described back then as “jail fever”. Sweeping reforms were established across Britain to replace the stagnant air with fresh air. Windmills were constructed on top of prison buildings to circulate fresh air.
Back in the 19th century, cholera had just begun to infect Europe, wiping out masses of people. One day, everything was fine;And the next, more and more people began dying… At that time, a Bavarian chemist Max von Pettekofer, theorised that the cholera originated from bacteria fermenting in the soil and persisting in poorly ventilated houses. People would breathe this stagnant air and would develop the symptoms of cholera.
While his theory wasn’t fully accurate, he made significant changes in Munich that pushed for greater sanitation and hygiene to prevent the spread of disease. It was only around this time that there was greater recognition of the link between urban design and the spread of disease. The combination of pollution, congestion, and poor airflow that contributed to illness.
Fast forward to the 1930s and 1940s, there was widespread acceptance that pathogens were capable of causing disease. Scientists began to understand that when we exhale we are exhaling tiny droplets which can have bacteria or viruses present. The longer you stay inside an unventilated room, the higher the concentrations will become and thus the risk of getting a disease increases.
Fast forward to today, we see the effects of hundreds of years of disease-fighting and scientific development in our cities today. The effects of the built environment can either be felt directly, with observable impacts on health, or indirectly through influencing our behaviours which in turn impact our health.
In our modern cities today, instead of the cramped compact housing of the Victorian period, houses are spaced out with adequate lawn and front yard area. Requirements for windows and airflow reduced disease transmission. Even in apartments, there is plenty of lush green space, and these tall skyscrapers are carefully spaced apart. Perhaps more significantly, we began to see “zoning”, with the separation of commercial and residential areas. Any harsh chemicals and pollutants from factories would remain separated from living areas.
These efforts to contain disease transmission have largely been successful, however, in the 21st century, we are facing a different kind of problem: chronic disease. Our world is becoming more sedentary with a marked rise in obesity and heart disease. The changes such as zoning and the introduction of the automobile has made us all physically inactive. If you look around now, current urban architecture aims to discourage this sedentary lifestyle.
We’ll start with exercise. Public spaces are much more open, with plenty of parks, reserves and gardens. At night most spaces are illuminated with lights to encourage exercise at any time of day. Some cities have shared exercise equipment, shower rooms, bicycle storage in an effort all to promote movement. However, what is often lacking are stairs in high-rise apartment buildings particularly in the city. The design of stairs should not be limited to just fire-escape stairs; there should be efforts to motivate residents to climb stairs rather than consistently take the elevator. Research has also shown the importance of “functional inconveniences”, such as increasing walking distance to a coffee shop or the grocery store of a building to ensure physical activity is part of daily activities.
Transport is another major factor. A study has found that in a city built with multiple suburban centres, individuals are more likely to walk or use exercise as a way of transport than in a city with a singular suburban centre. This has the added benefit of preventing disease transmission. By introducing multiple central “hubs”, there are more even distributions of daily activities and lowers the rate of disease transmission.
We are constantly learning from the past and responding to current challenges, from curbing the spread of infectious disease through better sanitation and airflow, now shifting toward addressing the challenges of modern life: chronic disease and inactivity. Our cities don’t just shape our environment, they shape our survival.
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