Remembering the west end : social science, mental health and the American urban environment, 1939-1968

Smith, Matthew and Ramsden, Edmund (2017) Remembering the west end : social science, mental health and the American urban environment, 1939-1968. Urban History. 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.

    Author(s):Smith, Matthew ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9267-2124 and Ramsden, Edmund
    Item type:Article
    ID code:59377
    Keywords: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 planning
    Department:Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > School of Humanities > History
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:11 Jan 2017 11:32
    Last modified:11 Oct 2019 01:19
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/59377
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