URBAN HEALTH STORIES
URBAN HEALTH STORIES
Project brief
The most intimate impacts of environmental health issues – pollution, congestion and mould in our homes – are hidden. In cities, exposure to poor indoor and outdoor air quality affects everyone, but not always evenly.
Where you live, what language you speak and what resources you have can arbitrarily dictate something as precious and personal as your health. This is as normalised as it is terrifying, deeply inequitable and dangerous.
We can’t wait for business-as-usual in urban planning or politics to prompt meaningful change: more members of the public must be moved and driven to demand action, in cities around the world. We need more people to see the unseen; we need more people to care.
We need better ways of telling this story.
The project:
URBAN HEALTH STORIES
I’m recording oral histories – through longform interviews – with others willing to share their experiences navigating environmental health challenges in a range of cities around the world.
We can talk in person or we can talk over video; we can publicise your name or leave your identity anonymous. But I want to know what’s happening in your neighbourhood – in your building, or on your street – that you think is impacting your health and your life.
Have you taken your landlord to court for untreated mould? Are you fighting your council to do something about a dangerous, polluting road? Is healthy food access – or lack thereof – a problem in your community that you want people to know about? Do you have a story from your or your family’s past that speaks to these issues?
Let’s talk.
These stories will be shared through a forthcoming social media campaign and series of extended blog posts, before finally being compiled into a wider book project.
Who am I?
I’m an urban planner, writer and researcher interested in the links between health and place – both professionally and personally. Though I’m currently based in the UK, I was brought up in the US: a breeding ground for extreme environmental health challenges. My dad was raised in the Bronx Borough of New York; he grew up along the notorious Cross-Bronx Expressway while it was still being built. He even remembered roller-skating on it before it opened to car traffic.
Throughout the Cross-Bronx corridor, high concentrations of pollutants like PM2.5 have been statistically correlated with elevated rates of emphysema, cardiovascular disease and cancer among residents. As I’ve recently written, my dad’s story is one of many that gives these statistics a human face. He spent the first three decades of his life in the Bronx, struggling with childhood asthma so severe that it kept him out of school. He was then sick throughout my youth, and finally succumbed to a lengthy cancer battle, fought with equal parts humour and grit, when I was 24.
There are many side-effects of grief, but a critical one is action. I want to keep my dad’s story alive by fighting for a healthier, greener future through my life and my work.
I also know that our family is far from alone in this experience – and I want to elevate the voices of others who are willing to share their stories with me.
With support from
