Place-Based Observance: 400 Years of Inequality and Urban Sustainability

Mindy Fullilove, MD
Professor of Urban Policy and Health

Note: For the first (approximately) 5 minutes of Professor Fullilove's talk, the camera stays focused on 3 empty chairs; the lens shifts to Professor Fullilove at around the 9 minute mark.

Description

The ecology of inequality in America is a designed landscape. 2019 will be the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans to be sold into bondage in North America at Jamestown. These Africans were the first of millions that followed as slaves to work on plantations established on land stolen from the indigenous peoples of the continent; this moment served as a catalyst for a physical, political, and social landscape rooted in inequality, one replicated in myriad forms across the world. We now know that inequality is a threat to health and democracy; 400 years of division have created an apartheid society, and we need new practices to carry us through the challenges of climate change, decaying infrastructure, and unequal access to jobs, education, health care and affordable housing. Drawing on the particular power of anniversaries, design, and place-making, 400 Years offers a methodology for communities, designers, and planners to engage with this legacy on both a local and global context.

400 Years of Inequality is a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals calling on everyone - families, friends, communities, institutions - to plan their own solemn observance of 1619, learn about their own stories and local places, and organize for a more just and equal future. We are dedicated to dismantling structural inequality and building strong, healthy communities.

Bio

Mindy Thompson Fullilove is a board-certified psychiatrist who explores the ties between environment and mental health. She received her bachelor’s degree from Bryan Mawr College and her MS and MD degrees from Columbia University. Her distinguished career includes her role as a research psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute and a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University. She is a professor of Urban Policy and Health at The New School in New York City.

Dedicated to the psychology of place, Mindy’s research started in 1986 when she linked the AIDS epidemic with place of residence and she continues to focus on the health problems caused by inequality. For the past 30 years, Mindy has been investigating how broken connections between different sections of cities harm public health and explores ways to reconnect them. Previously, Mindy taught at Columbia University and was a lecturer at Parsons.

She has published numerous articles and six books including "Urban Alchemy: Restoring Joy in America's Sorted-Out Cities," "Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It," and "House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place." She has received many awards, including inclusion in many “Best Doctors” and two honorary doctorates (Chatham College, 1999, and Bank Street College of Education, 2002).