YIMBY is Tuberculosis
As someone who generally reads fiction during the school year, I have been on a big non-fiction reading kick this semester, reading biographies of planners (read Topophilia 2025 when it comes out, my review of The Power Broker will be hype), a history of the British occupation of Ireland, and a psychology book on political conflict (see my YIMBY last week!!). But, my favourite non-fiction work I have read this year is John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis. As a big admirer of the Green brothers, I admittedly came into my reading with a large degree of bias, but Everything is Tuberculosis is an enthralling read that got me thinking about how the world’s deadliest infectious disease is so rarely spoken about in the west. Everything is Tuberculosis is a quick read (it took me two days), in which Green details how many everyday things can trace their roots back to Tuberculosis prevention, infections, and recoveries.
In planning and geography, Tuberculosis has an arguably equal impact to the Cholera endemic talking point that is often discussed with Jon Snow and EAS 221 or PLAN 210, but is much less discussed in western education. Post-industrial revolution, a key benefit of improving housing conditions and increasing the living space and standards for the lower classes was the eradication of tuberculosis spread. Proper living conditions and proper nutrition were deemed as strong a prevention measure as infection testing and the pasteurization of milk (Abercrombie, 1920). In the aforementioned classes, cholera, or just disease in general, were key talking points in the suburbanization of cities, and the start of the process that would become ‘slum-clearance.’ An added dimension that Green explores in Everything is Tuberculosis, is that one of the principal diseases in question, TB, had a shift in the public eye at this time. Before the discovery of the Tuberculosis bacterium, the disease was a ‘high-class’ disease of temperament and inheritance, named consumption. When the bacterial nature of the disease was uncovered, and the rich were better equipped to combat and medicate their infections, letting the ‘graceful’ mirage of consumption dissolve into Tuberculosis, a disease of poverty and poor living conditions.
TB disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities, which can be an indicator of a group's poor treatment by governments, poor access to healthcare, and the compounding dynamics of poverty and illness. In the mid and late 20th century, overcrowding in housing developments was one of the key indicators of tuberculosis spread in cities, and was most common in inner cities, with communities that are already systematically disadvantaged (Wallace & Wallace, 1997). In Canada, Tuberculosis rates are 40 times higher for Indigenous peoples than for non-Indigenous people (Radha, 2021). The factors that drive Tuberculosis such as poor healthcare, poor housing conditions, and food insecurity disproportionately affect Indigenous people in this country, which are further amplified by Tuberculosis infections.
I will leave you with a quote from Everything is Tuberculosis that has stuck with me:
“Tuberculosis is so often, and in so many ways, a disease of vicious cycles: It’s an illness of poverty that worsens poverty. It’s an illness that worsens other illnesses. It’s an illness of weak healthcare systems that weakens healthcare systems. It’s an illness of malnutrition that worsens malnutrition. And it’s an illness of the stigmatized that worsens stigmatization.” (Green, 2025, pg. 159)
I strongly recommend that you pick up Everything is Tuberculosis from your local library or bookstore, it is a great read to start your summer off with!
References
ABERCROMBIE, PATRICK. “THE INFLUENCE OF TOWN PLANNING UPON TUBERCULOSIS.” The Journal of State Medicine (1912-1937), vol. 28, no. 1, 1920, pp. 1–11. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45206722. Accessed 8 Apr. 2025.
Green, John. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. Crash Course Books, an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2025.
Radha Jetty, Tuberculosis among First Nations, Inuit and Métis children and youth in Canada: Beyond medical management, Paediatrics & Child Health, Volume 26, Issue 2, April-May 2021, Pages e78–e81, https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxz183
Wallace, R., and D. Wallace. “The Destruction of US Minority Urban Communities and the Resurgence of Tuberculosis: Ecosystem..” Environment & Planning A, vol. 29, no. 2, Feb. 1997, p. 269. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1068/a290269.
This article was written by GAPSS VP Marketing Eric Prefontaine.