Ideas, Municipal Sanitation, and the Transformation of Public Health
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6404858 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathleen S Sullivan (0000-0003-3718-327X, Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA), Patricia Strach (0000-0002-8397-143X, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 85-116 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Affairs Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1078-0874 • E-ISSN: 1552-8332 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/10780874251332254 |
| OpenAlex | W4410213905 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 53 |
The transition from private, individual garbage disposal practices to public responsibility for sanitation marked a durable shift in governing authority, which advanced local governments’ control over public health at the same time it transformed public health outcomes in American cities. How did political actors at the time advocate for, win, and maintain cities’ public health authority and capacity? We show the development of municipal garbage programs was predicated on the bedrock of ideas about garbage as a sanitary issue. Further, we illustrate how power was exercised through the idea of sanitation, whether in casting filth as a threat to public health, persuading politicians to adopt sanitary measures, or in inducing residents to comply with new practices. The ideas sanitary experts promoted, the policies they advocated for, and the waste management infrastructure they helped to develop remain evident in the acceptance, location, and methods of garbage collection and disposal today
Business · Economic growth · Economics · Environmental health · Environmental planning · Geography · Political science · Public health · Sanitation · Transformation (genetics · Environmental Science · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Medicine · Public Administration · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Environmental Engineering
The Search for American Political Development
The Sanitary City
Discard Studies
The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development
The Bonds of Inequality
The Cholera Years
The City in American Political Development
Foucault
Taming Manhattan
The urban mortality transition in the united states, 1800-1940
Ideas and the Spiral of Politics
Dirty Work
Market Privilege
The Strange Career of Municipal Health Initiatives
Brighton Fair
The Metabolism of the Industrial City
Water Supply, Waste Disposal, and the Culture of Privatism in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century American City
The role of public health improvements in health advances
Yellow Fever in New Orleans, 1853
The People's Welfare
The Healthiest City
To Engineer the Metropolis
Businessmen Against Pollution in Late Nineteenth Century Chicago
The Impact of Sanitary Reform upon American Urban Planning, 1840-1890
The Horse as an Urban Technology
Charting Change in the City
Urban Regime Theory and the Problem of Change
Draining the Swamp
Racism as a Public Health Crisis
Urban Governance and the American Political Development Approach
From Sewers to Suburbs
By Design or by Default
Building the Plane While Flying
Sanitarians, Public Good, and Power
Reconnecting with Our Roots
Clean and White
Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930
Clean and white
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |