"It is just about the most authoritative and thorough examination of how our urban design (and house design) affects our health and wellbeing, and should be on the desk of every urban designer and planner as an important reference… I cannot imagine writing about urban issues involving food, health, safety or transportation without picking this up for a quote or a reference; it is going to be an essential tool."
TreeHugger
"This comprehensive, beautifully edited volume explains why and how our physical environment profoundly affects each of us, our family, our community, and our nation. A treasure of excellent chapters by well-respected experts, it is replete with practical wisdom on how to diagnose and ameliorate the wide range of environmental problems, with inspiring examples of success. Reading it is the equivalent of a top tier graduate level course in practical environmental health."
Jonathan Fielding, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Health Services and Pediatrics, UCLA and Director of Public Health
"The authors have crafted an exemplary look at the various components of community design that promote and support health. Through their perspective we see clearly how much community design matters to our health and well-being; and it matters a lot."
Georges C. Benjamin, M.D., Executive Director, American Public Health Association
"The editors of this powerful volume put design squarely in the public health armamentarium. Both a guide and call to action, its well-researched chapters provide a foundation for profound change in design practice and education. The truly beautiful stairway is one that beckons us to use it—the same applies to sidewalks, parks, bike lanes, playgrounds, and public transportation."
Daniel S. Friedman, PhD, FAIA, Dean, College of Built Environments, University of Washington
"Here's a book that mayors, health officials, developers, architects, planners and environmentalists will want to read and keep handy. Dannenberg, Frumkin, and Jackson call for big gains in public health, environmental and economic performance and provide the necessary advice to achieve such a transformation."
John Norquist, President of the Congress for the New Urbanism and former Mayor of Milwaukee, WI
"Dannenberg ... et al. ...outline the major health issues that relate to the built environment, including physical activity, food, air and water quality, injury, mental health, and social bonds, and specific transportation and land use aspects. They also address how to create change, the future training of professionals, research, and urban health in low and middle-income countries."
Reference & Research Book News
"The book is an extensive, sometimes exhausting, overview of many related topics. The challenges it presents are sobering. The solutions it envisions are exciting. Landscape architecture is present throughout. Some may find it a "heavy lift" given its length and, in some instances, highly technical nature. But it is all there, providing landscape architects, architects, and planners with tools and strategies to think about how the built environment impacts our physical, mental, social, environmental, and economic well-being."
ASLA's The Dirt blog
"The book's introduction states it is primarily aimed at students but it would disappointing if this timely research fails to reach other audiences—in particular politicians at all levels of government."
Spacing
"The editors seek to avoid technical jargon that might put off the students to whom the book is addressed."
American Planning Association
"The thesis is simple. The urban environment should be planned and built to encourage physical exercise, a healthy diet, low pollution levels, accessible nature necounters, and mental serenity."
Choice
"This book explores how the built environment continues to impact on health (and consequently life chances) and sets out how planners, policy makers, designers and educators can influence this dynamic and engage with the 'perfect storm of intersecting health, environmental, and economic challenges'."
Urban Journal
"Making Healthy Places, although it is not a theological work, is deeply theological in the vision of health that is seeking and is a book that not only must be read and discussed in churches, we must also allow it to shape our vision of what the mission of the church is in our particular places, and as such it is one of the most significant books that I've read this year!"
Englewood Review of Books
