"Health is determined in part by personal choice and genetics. However, where you live also affects your health," according to Stephanie Welch, Knox County Health Department's Community Development and Planning Director.

Welch will explore the critical relationship of place and health as she reviews Toward the Healthy City: People, Places, and the Politics of Urban Planning by Jason Coburn in Knox County Public Library's Brown Bag, Green Book program, at noon on Wednesday, August 15, in the East Tennessee History Center, 601 South Gay Street. The program series is co-sponsored by the City of Knoxville.

"We see this in East Tennessee," Welch points out, "where, for example, some neighborhoods are full of convenience stores and have no grocery stores. What kind of healthy choices does a person without a car have in this environment?"

In Toward the Healthy City, Corburn argues that city planning must return to its roots in public health and social justice. The first book to provide a detailed account of how city planning and public health practices can reconnect to address health disparities, Toward the Healthy City offers a new decision-making framework called "healthy city planning" that reframes traditional planning and development issues and offers a new scientific evidence base for participatory action, coalition building, and ongoing monitoring.

"What kind of healthy choices does a person without a car have in this environment?" Welch says. "We have a responsibility to plan and develop our community in a way that provides equitable opportunity to make healthy choices."

The public is invited to join the conversation and bring a lunch or pick up something from a downtown restaurant. Copies of the books are available at the Library if you'd like to read one before the program.

Brown Bag Green Book continues on September 19, when Gina Hancock, State Director of Nature Conservancy of Tennessee, will talk about Conservancy: The Land Trust Movement in America by Richard Brewer. On October 17, Madeline Rogero, Mayor of the City of Knoxville, will discuss Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development by Joan Fitzgerald.

For more information, please call Emily Ellis at 865-215-8723.