2018 Health Symposium: Communities in Transition

Health Implications Workshop and Panel Presentation

In April 2018, CU Denver’s College of Architecture and Planning held a two-day event to address health implications in our neighborhoods, cities, and communities. A call-to-action was issued that began a partnership that would become the Colorado Healthy Places Collaborative – a network of nearly two dozen statewide and regional organizations and associations committed to working together to create healthier places in Colorado. A workshop was then held at the College for the discussion on the health implications of displacement and relocation. Attention was given to gentrification and megaprojects which uproot people from their communities. That theme was continued at a program with a panel of health and planning experts from New York City, Washington, DC, and California. The speakers addressed long-term health impacts – physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual – of being displaced from community. A perspective was shared that healthy development does not have to result in displacement and the harm which occurs from being uprooted.