scholarly journals 'Living in a State of Filth and Indifference to … Their Health': Weather, Public Health and Urban Governance in Colonial George Town, Penang

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Williamson ◽  
Katrina Proust

This article explores the development of public health infrastructure in George Town, Penang, before the 1930s. It argues that the extreme weather of the tropical climate led to a unique set of health challenges for George Town's administrators, as the town grew from a small British base to a multi-cultural and thriving port. Weather and public health were (and still are) integrally connected, although the framing of this relationship has undergone significant shifts in thinking and appearance over time. One lens into this association is the situation and expression of these elements within municipal structures. During the nineteenth century, government departments were fewer and shared roles and responsibilities. The Medical Department, for example, observed the weather, making connections between rain, drought and the incidence of disease. Engineers asked critical questions about mortality rates from disease after floods. As ideas about climate and health developed and changed, the shift became evident in the style, concerns and proliferation of governmental departments. This article thus considers the different ways in which weather, public health, and town planning were understood, managed and enacted by the Straits Settlements' administration until the 1930s. It will start by exploring the situation facing the settlement's inhabitants, in terms of specific climate and health challenges. It will then consider how these challenges were understood and addressed, why and by whom, and how these elements were repositioned over the period in question.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Raval ◽  
◽  
Bhagyajit Raval ◽  

Contemporary cities are faced with a rising population due to rural to urban migration, significant demographic changes, climate risks, economic shifts and rapid technological change. The proposals for new cities and its development process is looked at as a “ready- made” finished fit for all model where the planning fails to acknowledge the existing demographics and friction on ground. This paper argues that there is a disparity between vision and planning for Dholera Smart city. It investigates the strategy cantered on land use adopted by the Dholera Special Investment Region and its land development mechanism to understand the process of city making. It critically reflects on the Town Planning scheme model of development and the idea of greenfield city planning. Investigating Dholera as a case for special investment region and it tries to position it in the theoretical understanding of paradigm shift in the model of urban governance. The paper critically reflects on the narrative of speculative urbanism and state rescaling in the case of Dholera greenfield city. This research argues that new cities by themselves are not an answer to the urbanization challenges that India is facing in contemporary times. Keywords: Smart City; Dholera; Special Investment Region; Greenfield City; Land-


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Cameron ◽  
Rhéa Rocque ◽  
Kailey Penner ◽  
Ian Mauro

Abstract Background Despite scientific evidence that climate change has profound and far reaching implications for public health, translating this knowledge in a manner that supports citizen engagement, applied decision-making, and behavioural change can be challenging. This is especially true for complex vector-borne zoonotic diseases such as Lyme disease, a tick-borne disease which is increasing in range and impact across Canada and internationally in large part due to climate change. This exploratory research aims to better understand public risk perceptions of climate change and Lyme disease in order to increase engagement and motivate behavioural change. Methods A focus group study involving 61 participants was conducted in three communities in the Canadian Prairie province of Manitoba in 2019. Focus groups were segmented by urban, rural, and urban-rural geographies, and between participants with high and low levels of self-reported concern regarding climate change. Results Findings indicate a broad range of knowledge and risk perceptions on both climate change and Lyme disease, which seem to reflect the controversy and complexity of both issues in the larger public discourse. Participants in high climate concern groups were found to have greater climate change knowledge, higher perception of risk, and less skepticism than those in low concern groups. Participants outside of the urban centre were found to have more familiarity with ticks, Lyme disease, and preventative behaviours, identifying differential sources of resilience and vulnerability. Risk perceptions of climate change and Lyme disease were found to vary independently rather than correlate, meaning that high climate change risk perception did not necessarily indicate high Lyme disease risk perception and vice versa. Conclusions This research contributes to the growing literature framing climate change as a public health issue, and suggests that in certain cases climate and health messages might be framed in a way that strategically decouples the issue when addressing climate skeptical audiences. A model showing the potential relationship between Lyme disease and climate change perceptions is proposed, and implications for engagement on climate change health impacts are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary L. Freed

AbstractWhen attempting to provide lessons for other countries from the successful Israeli COVID-19 vaccine experience, it is important to distinguish between the modifiable and non-modifiable components identified in the article by Rosen, et al. Two specific modifiable components included in the Israeli program from which the US can learn are (a) a national (not individual state-based) strategy for vaccine distribution and administration and (b) a functioning public health infrastructure. As a federal government, the US maintains an often complex web of state and national authorities and responsibilities. The federal government assumed responsibility for the ordering, payment and procurement of COVID vaccine from manufacturers. In designing the subsequent steps in their COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration plan, the Trump administration decided to rely on the states themselves to determine how best to implement guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This strategy resulted in 50 different plans and 50 different systems for the dissemination of vaccine doses, all at the level of each individual state. State health departments were neither financed, experienced nor uniformly possessed the expertise to develop and implement such plans. A national strategy for the distribution, and the workforce for the provision, of vaccine beyond the state level, similar to that which occurred in Israel, would have provided for greater efficiency and coordination across the country. The US public health infrastructure was ill-prepared and ill-staffed to take on the responsibility to deliver > 450 million doses of vaccine in an expeditious fashion, even if supply of vaccine was available. The failure to adequately invest in public health has been ubiquitous across the nation at all levels of government. Since the 2008 recession, state and local health departments have lost > 38,000 jobs and spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18%. Hopefully, COVID-19 will be a wakeup call to the US with regard to the need for both a national strategy to address public health emergencies and the well-maintained infrastructure to make it happen.


2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (S3) ◽  
pp. S224-S231
Author(s):  
Lan N. Đoàn ◽  
Stella K. Chong ◽  
Supriya Misra ◽  
Simona C. Kwon ◽  
Stella S. Yi

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the many broken fragments of US health care and social service systems, reinforcing extant health and socioeconomic inequities faced by structurally marginalized immigrant communities. Throughout the pandemic, even during the most critical period of rising cases in different epicenters, immigrants continued to work in high-risk-exposure environments while simultaneously having less access to health care and economic relief and facing discrimination. We describe systemic factors that have adversely affected low-income immigrants, including limiting their work opportunities to essential jobs, living in substandard housing conditions that do not allow for social distancing or space to safely isolate from others in the household, and policies that discourage access to public resources that are available to them or that make resources completely inaccessible. We demonstrate that the current public health infrastructure has not improved health care access or linkages to necessary services, treatments, or culturally competent health care providers, and we provide suggestions for how the Public Health 3.0 framework could advance this. We recommend the following strategies to improve the Public Health 3.0 public health infrastructure and mitigate widening disparities: (1) address the social determinants of health, (2) broaden engagement with stakeholders across multiple sectors, and (3) develop appropriate tools and technologies. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(S3):S224–S231. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306433 )


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 263-264

Creighton Connolly (2017) Landscape political ecologies of urban ‘swiftlet farming’ in George Town, Malaysia. cultural geographies 24(3): 421–439. DOI: 10.1177/1474474016684128. The journal would like to make the following correction: Endnotes 45-69 should be revised as follows: 45. Geografia, George Town Land Use and Population Survey. 46. Following Malaysian independence in 1957, the new Malay government renamed all streets in Malaysia’s colonial enclaves such as George Town. However, many of the old names are still commonly used by residents, hence my reference to both. 47. This attitude on behalf of government officials in Malaysia has also been documented by other scholars, see K.Mulligan, S.J.Elliott and C.Shuster-Wallace, ‘The Place of Health and the Health of Place: Dengue Fever and Urban Governance in Putrajaya, Malaysia’, Health & Place, 18, 2012, pp. 613–20. 48. On a more recent visit to George Town in August, 2016, EYS still had hundreds of swiftlets flying in and out, nearly 3 years after the deadline for closure of swiftlet farms inside the WHS. Given the political and economic influence of the EYS company, it is conceivable that they will be able to continue operating the swiftlet farm for the foreseeable future. 49. According to George Town’s Special Area Plan (2011), category II buildings are those ‘of special interest that warrants every effort being made to preserve them’. See State Government of Penang (SGP), Draft Special Area Plan, George Town: Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca (Penang: SGP, 2010). 50. This incident was (allegedly) triggered by the export of fake birds’ nests with dangerous nitrite levels to China from Malaysia, and resulted in the near collapse of the swiftlet farming industry, given that China has always been the primary market for EBNs. This episode demonstrated how the physical landscape in one place can be dramatically influenced by political-economic changes elsewhere. See Connolly, ‘A Landscape Political Ecology of ‘Swiftlet Farming’ in Malaysian Cities’, chapter 4; C.Thorburn, ‘The Edible Birds’ Nest Boom in Indonesia and South-East Asia’, Food, Culture and Society, 17, 2014, 535–53. 51. MBPP (Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang), ‘Laporan Industri Dan Premis Burung Walit Di Dalam Tapak Warisan Dunia George Town’ (George Town, Penang, Jabatan Warisan, 2013), np. 52. George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), Draft Guidelines for Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) World Heritage Cities of Melaka and George Town (Penang, 2010), pp. 76–7, < www.gtwhi.com.my/index.php/regulate/2015-01-21-04-01-01/2015-01-21-04-18-59 > 53. Note, this excludes Penang and Malacca, where heritage was the largest concern, due to the UNESCO World Heritage listing in both cities. 54. On an earlier visit to Taiping, I came across a hotel which operated a swiftlet house on the top story, while the bottom three stories were rented out to human occupants (!) 55. J.Lepawsky and R.C.Jubilado, ‘Globalizing Kuala Lumpur and Rationalizing the Street’, In S.G.Yeoh (ed.), The Other Kuala Lumpur (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 22–37. 56. T.K.Ho, ‘Swiftlet Rearing in Town a Health Threat’, The Star, 6 February 2009, p. N49. 57. Quoted in anonymous, ‘Chow: Swiftlet farms being phased out’, The Star, 14 April 2013, n.p. 58. Mulligan et al., ‘The Place of Health and the Health of Place’. 59. Duckett-Wilkinson, correspondence, 15 December 2010. 60. Duckett-Wilkinson, correspondence, 5 May 2011. 61. Indeed, Duckett-Wilkinson has spoken to several local doctors in George Town about this issue, who have verbally confirmed that cases of lung disease are ‘disproportionate’ in Georgetown (Duckett-Wilkinson, interview, 22 October 2013). 62. Duckett-Wilkinson, Open Letter, 20 June 2010; citing M.L.DeWitt, ‘cryptococcus’, < http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/215354-overview > 63. Anonymous, ‘A health hazard not many are aware of’, New Straits Times, 9 September 2009, n.p., print. 64. In: R.Nathan, ‘“More Seminars” Plan for Bird’s Nest Farmers’ The Star, 6 June 2003, p. 13. 65. See Mulligan et al., ‘The Place of Health and the Health of Place’; T.Bunnell, ‘Re-Viewing the Entrapment Controversy: Megaprojection, (Mis)Representation and Postcolonial Performance’, GeoJournal, 59, 2004, pp. 297–305. 66. Carpiano, ‘Come Take a Walk with Me’. 67. M.Gandy, ‘Marginalia: Aesthetics, Ecology and Urban Wastelands’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103(6), 2013, pp. 1301–16; A.Loftus, ‘Working the Socio-Natural Relations of the Urban Waterscape in South Africa’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(1), 2007, pp. 41–59; E.Swyngedouw, ‘The City as a Hybrid – On Nature, Society and Cyborg Urbanization’, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 7(2), 1996, pp. 65–80. 68. See, for example, Mitchell, The Lie of the Land; D.Matless, Landscape and Englishness (London: Reaktion Books, 1998). 69. See, for example, P.Y.Hung, Tea Production, Land Use Politics, and Ethnic Minorities: Struggling over Dilemmas on China’s Southwest Frontier (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Neumann, ‘Political Ecology III’; Walker and Fortmann, ‘Whose Landscape?’.


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