Shaping Healthy Cities Nashville
The shape we give our city, in turn shapes us.
The Nashville Civic Design Center, in partnership with the Metro Public Health Department, announces Shaping Healthy Cities: Nashville.
Scheduled for publication in January 2013 by Vanderbilt University Press, the book will build on the long term vision for our city set forth in The Plan of Nashville (2005), but focus more specifically on designing our built environment to foster better health among our citizens.
In the past decade, public health officials have established ever stronger links between the qualities of the built environment and the startling rise of preventable diseases, e.g. obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease and asthma. With a wealth of data, information and tools to inform policy, development, planning and design, the Shaping Healthy Cities: Nashville project will be a catalyst to transform Nashville into the “Healthiest City in the South.”
Shaping Healthy Cities: Nashville will result in three products:
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a narrative book
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things-to-do checklists to assess the health impacts of development decisions, and
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video shorts to enhance public awareness.
The book will provide a brief history of the sprawling city, compelling personal narratives illustrating how individuals negotiate the commute to work, school and shopping, and an action plangrounded in the geographic, fiscal, policy and political realities of the city. The purpose is to give Nashville the tools to improve on Tennessee’s rankings of least active state, with third highest obesity prevalence, in the nation.
With a wealth of data, information, and tools to inform policy, development, planning and design, the Shaping Healthy Cities: Nashville project will be the catalyst to transform Nashville into the “Healthiest City in the South.” With action plans grounded in the geographic, fiscal, policy and political realities of the city, Nashville will have the tools to improve on Tennessee’s rankings of least active state, with third highest obesity prevalence, in the nation. Our goal is to ensure that our citizens can live out their lives fully— from birth through their golden years—in each and every neighborhood in the city.
Shaping Healthy Cities Nashville in the press
CAN NASHVILLE DESIGN HEALTHIER CITIZENS? Monday, October 3, 2011 - Christine Kreyling
DEAN PUSHES OBESITY FIGHT - Sunday, October 02, 2011 - Tom Wilemon, Tennessean reporter
For questions or suggestions on the Shaping Healthy Cities Project, please contact Patricia Conway
