Diseases and Urban Space with Sara Carr
Episode 96 - August 2, 2022
Sara Carr (Northeastern University) joins the Infectious Historians for a conversation about her work on redesigning urban space in response to a pandemic. The discussion begins with a survey of the major changes in urban landscapes in the US over the past two centuries. Sara presents the epidemics she covers – ranging from cholera to urban blight – and talks about the speed in which changes might be expected to occur. The differential impact of diseases among class and residency status comes up in several contexts, and Sara discusses what changes might happen in urban space as a result of the Covid pandemic.
Further Reading
- Comparison of two New York City street corners after sanitation campaigns, Harper’s Weekly, June 22, 1895, courtesy New York Public Library
- Carr, S. J. (2020). Uncertain Space: Data Illusions and the Landscape of Illness in the 21st Century. Projections, 15(Practices of Health in Unruly Environments).
- Carr, S.J., McIntosh, A., Murphy, M. and Ochsendorf, J., 2022. Schools that Breathe: Studio Education in the Pandemic. Journal of Architectural Education, 76(1), pp.60-74.
- Szczygiel, B. and Hewitt, R., 2000. Nineteenth-century medical landscapes: John H. Rauch, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the search for salubrity. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 74(4), pp.708-734.
- Corburn, J., 2004. Confronting the challenges in reconnecting urban planning and public health. American journal of public health, 94(4), pp.541-546.
- Mujahid, M.S., Gao, X., Tabb, L.P., Morris, C. and Lewis, T.T., 2021. Historical redlining and cardiovascular health: the multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(51), p.e2110986118.
Our Guest
Sara Carr
Assistant Professor, College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University
