I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: Our built environment contributes to a mental health crisis.

The built environment as we know it—buildings and the spaces between—does direct damage to our minds. Communities developed slowly for thousands of years, but in 20th century America, the end of World War II introduced a massive population and construction boom.

Land use planning has had devastating impacts on Americans—economically, socially, and culturally. But I’m not a doomer and I know these things are fixable. Not overnight reversible, but certainly fixable.

Typical land use rules are written, updated, and enforced at the local government level. Agencies copied each other over the years—because why wouldn’t they? Much of what I’ve learned as an adult (podcasting, publishing, propaganda making, etc.) has been taught by generous people who themselves had learned tips and tricks. So, of course, public agencies copied each other. “Hey, that worked for a similar river city. Let’s try it here.”

Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.

Planning departments at city and county levels weren’t setting out to guide development in a way that would purposefully harm us. Quite the opposite. If a new Sears distribution center was coming to town, they’d want to map out a plan to accommodate all the new employees and subsequent traffic. In the middle of the 20th century, planners were still very much concerned about separating dirty and/or dangerous land uses from residential areas. 

The result was that all across the country, local development rules required or incentivized development patterns that spread everyone and everything across the landscape: work zone, school zone, shopping zone, entertainment zone, and sleep zone. And then each major category started........

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