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Rebuilding the Unity of Health and the Environment The Greater Houston Metropolitan Area: Workshop Summary (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Summary
Pages 1-5

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From page 1...
... In any case, these themes should be central to the region's strategies for achieving sound environmental health and greater equity in its distribution. A TRUE MELTING POT Houston is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the United States.
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From page 2...
... AIR QUALITY Houston residents routinely list poor air quality as the region's worst pollution problem -- the result of a broad array of highways, refineries, and other industrial facilities, many of them in close proximity to where people live, work, or go to school. Compounding this situation is the city's heat island effect -- that is, elevated urban temperatures that in addition to being a risk in their own right enhance the formation of photochemical smog.
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From page 3...
... HIGH-QUALITY, ABUNDANT, AND SOMETIMES OVERLY ABUNDANT SUPPLIES OF WATER Although Houston's waterways have been troubled in the past -- the Houston Ship Channel was sometimes referred to as the most polluted waterway in the United States and probably the world -- the region has made considerable progress over the past few decades, with the aid of strong federal legislation, in cleaning up its water pollution. Supplies of drinking water, by contrast, have been kept safe in the past by scrupulous treatment, and it is a point of local pride that they continue to be of high quality and readily available into the foreseeable future.
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From page 4...
... In this spirit, the public and its leaders should regularly remind themselves that land use and building design decisions, for example, are de facto public health decisions. Moreover, in trying to define environmental health in a more holistic way, they should not limit themselves to regulations designed to fix past mistakes but should look to the future in order to prevent problems in the first place.
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From page 5...
... Suddenly, or so it seems, factors such as air quality, revitalization of the city's downtown, and richness of hiking and boating areas have become critical. Environmental health issues can be creatively addressed when stakeholders listen to each other and work together noted some participants.
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Key Terms

  • social environment
  • natural environment
  • traffic congestion
  • health decisions
  • similar changes

  • stakeholders listen
  • residents routinely
  • sometimes referred
  • increasingly building
  • waste management

  • delivers progress
  • devote insufficient
  • major air
  • building social
  • major disruptions

  • list poor
  • polluted waterway
  • building design
  • fix past
  • deficient planning

  • local pride
  • kept safe
  • actively protecting
  • marginal change
  • attractive future

  • define environmental
  • pursued include
  • environmentally deficient
  • cigarette smoke
  • resulting social


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