Health

Health and the Spaces Inbetween

Last year, we published a focus issue on health and community development. We called the package “Are Our Neighborhoods Making Us Sick?“ and pulled together a wide range of authors […]

Last year, we published a focus issue on health and community development. We called the package “Are Our Neighborhoods Making Us Sick?“ and pulled together a wide range of authors talking about everything from asthma triggers in affordable housing to mobility between and isolation of neighborhoods. It sparked a lot of conversation, and we've been keeping our eyes out for chances to continue that conversation through Shelterforce and Rooflines, about both the existing overlaps and how the two sectors can come together.

Looking through that lens, it actually becomes quite clear that our entire recent issue, about “third places” (gathering spots that are neither home nor work) in distressed communities, is also threaded through with questions of health, even though we didn't necessarily set out to make that a focus. For example:

These natural overlaps are a perfect example of the point that community development and health are deeply interwined, and we look forward to continuing to explore them.

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