How on Earth Can a Vacant Lot Give You Gonorrhea?

Our Unhealthy Fear of Vacant Land

Abandoned buildings and broken windows are bad for our bodies, because they're bad for our minds.

In their 2009 journal article "Alcohol consumption, alcohol outlets, and the risk of being assaulted with a gun," Dr. Charles Branas and colleagues at University of Pennsylvania found that, compared to people who don't drink, "Heavy drinkers were 2.67 times as likely to be shot in an assault." Part of that was because they spent more time around liquor stores. People grumble that it's not a good sign for a neighborhood when a liquor store opens, but this study said it's empirically beyond that. Simply being near a liquor store, they concluded, at any given time, makes you about three times more likely to be shot. Regardless of their effect on drinking, the presence of liquor stores in a neighborhood is looked at as a health hazard.

Living next to vacant property and abandoned buildings, meanwhile, is more immediately concerning to most people. New research in the Journal of Urban Health from Branas, along with Dr. Eugenia Garvin and others at Penn Medical School, found that empty buildings are bad for our physical health in ways well beyond the obvious [[collapse, fire, aggressive transients). According to the Penn team, it often comes down to a sense of loss of control that vacant properties impart. Loss of control is the root of fear. That fear leads to social isolation and loss of collective efficacy and social capital -- as well as reduced physical activity and more drug use -- which mean poor health.

For the rest of the article [[you know you want to know about the Gonorrhea): http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/our-unhealthy-fear-of-vacant-land/266188/