Remembering the west end : social science, mental health and the American urban environment, 1939-1968
Ramsden, Edmund and Smith, Matthew (2018) Remembering the west end : social science, mental health and the American urban environment, 1939-1968. Urban History, 45 (1). pp. 128-149. ISSN 1469-8706
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Abstract
In 1958, the Boston Redevelopment Authority began its demolition of a 48-acre portion of Boston’s West End, displacing 2,700 lower-working class families. For Erich Lindemann, chief of psychiatry at the nearby Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), this urban renewal programme offered a unique opportunity. By studying the effect of acute stress and loss on the population, they could contribute to the emerging field of social psychiatry which sought to prevent mental illness through identifying and a meliorating the effects of destructive factors in the social and physical environment. The results of Lindemann’s project, ‘Relocation and Mental Health: Adaptation Under Stress’, would not only contribute to an emerging community mental health programme, but would also become critical to debates surrounding urban renewal and the relationship between the built environment and mental health more generally. Such was the case in Boston, where ‘Remember the West End!’ became a rallying call for those who lamented the destruction of a once vibrant neighbourhood, and throughout the US, where urban renewal was increasingly seen to inflict unreasonable upheaval upon socially and economically disadvantaged populations for questionable purposes.
ORCID iDs
Ramsden, Edmund and Smith, Matthew
Item type: Article ID code: 59377 Dates: DateEvent28 February 2018Published10 February 2017Published Online1 April 2016AcceptedKeywords: Boston regeneration, urban renewal, mental health, United States, Canada, Latin America, Regional planning, Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), History, Urban Studies, Geography, Planning and Development Subjects: History United States, Canada, Latin America
Social Sciences > Communities. Classes. Races > Regional planningDepartment: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > School of Humanities > History Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 11 Jan 2017 11:32 Last modified: 31 Mar 2021 00:31 URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/59377