This article was first published on
Wired
Air quality, heat, and food in your neighborhood have a big influence on your health. Future urban design needs to take this into account.
Tolullah Oni has a challenge for you. Next time you’re in a city—especially one you don’t know well—go for a long run, bike ride, or walk. See if you can tell when you enter an affluent neighborhood. You should, she says, be able to guess.
“Suddenly it’s a couple of degrees lower in hot areas. There’s a bit more shade. Separation from traffic is a bit higher. Your eyes are not streaming as much,” says Oni, a clinical professor of global public health and sustainable development at the University of Cambridge and an urban epidemiologist whose research takes her to cities around the world. Invariably, when Oni reviews the streets she has passed through, her predictions are spot on. “I would go back and check, and yeah, that was a posh area.”
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