About Somerville, Mass.
Somerville is the most densely populated municipality in New England. Historically a gateway city that previously attracted large numbers of Italian, Irish and Portuguese immigrants, it remains an immigrant city with a population that is 25% foreign born. Previously known as a blue-collar city suffering from deindustrialization, crime, and population loss, Somerville is now a well-known sanctuary city that is home to diverse people from Brazil, Haiti, and Central America. It is also becoming increasingly socioeconomically polarized as affluent professionals and families settle into historically poor and working class communities. The city is recognized as a model modern city distinguished by innovative government, community engaged planning efforts, and as a city where residents are committed to working together to tackle community-wide challenges. However, there is disagreement in the city regarding the extent to which residents have informed development and transportation decisions, and there has been a great deal of grass-roots and resident organizing pushing for more participatory governance, and a greater representation of the needs of diverse Somerville residents in decision making and local policy. As Somerville has evolved into a desirable place to live, it presents a case-study for how municipal governments and their communities grapple with various intertwined urban issues such as gentrification, affordable housing, development vs displacement, and transportation expansion- all factors that influence health.
About the Course: Urban Health and Community Change
with course partners from Somerville DHHS and the Cambridge Health Alliance
after their presentation to stakeholders at Somerville City Hall
Urban Health and Community Change: Planning Action with Local Stakeholders is a project-based course on urban community health. Each semester, we will explore the social conditions people need to be healthy, and strategies to advance health equity that put people in diverse communities on pathways to health as opposed to disparities. To understand how health promoting environments can be created and sustained, we will discuss how community engagement, participatory planning, and cross-sector collaboration can advance health improvement efforts at the local level.
This course is a collaboration with the City of Somerville Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), and the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) Somerville Community Health Agenda. Students have engaged with community stakeholders in Somerville, Mass to study stress in the city, and presented their findings and recommendations to the City of Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, city administration and agency officials.
To foster a more comprehensive understand of the city, each student visited a neighborhood in Somerville to create his/her photo essay. Students’ visits focused on land use and the characteristics of the community, and how the physical/built environment impacts health. Students were asked to considered how their visits to a neighborhood furthered their understanding of Somerville (eg: social characteristics, development issues, overall community context, etc.), and the factors (in the physical and social environments) that could either cause stress and/or provide resources for residents to manage and cope with stress.
Urban Health and Community Change: A Somerville/Harvard Collaboration 