ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s, livability has become an increasingly important goal of urban development, particularly, though not exclusively, in the United States. But the term livability is not easily defined. Partner for Livable Communities, a national nonprofit which supports US towns and cities in their quest for livability, defines it as “the sum of the factors that add up to a community’s quality of life—including the built and natural environments, economic prosperity, social stability and equity, educational opportunity, and cultural, entertainment and recreation possibilities” (https://livable.org/about-us/what-is-livability" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://livable.org/about-us/what-is-livability, accessed 8/19/2015). Livability is clearly not a historical concept or a term that would crop up in historical sources. This chapter will relate it, however, to an ancestry of similar concepts, such as the “healthy city,” which guided and inspired planned urban development by the end of the 19th century. Using smoke and omnipresent air pollution as a case study, this chapter will show how air pollution made cities unlivable in the late 19th century, and indeed for large parts of the 20th century. It will furthermore demonstrate how air pollution and its abatement were constructed in changing ways along with the emergence of the general principles of town planning.
