Consumption crusade: the influence of tuberculosis on the emergence of town planning in South Australia, 1890–1918

At the turn of the twentieth century, town planning and public health ideals coalesced, with health and environmental reformers working in concert to promote goals of healthy and sanitary towns for all. Focussing on South Australia, this article demonstrates how pulmonary tuberculosis lay at the heart of many strategies suggested by doctors, sanitarians, architects, and advocates for the nascent town planning profession. Tuberculosis, as the biggest killer of that era, had no cure, so prevention and treatment relied on behavioural and environmental interventions. Light, air and space were central to treatment regimens, with the trio also forming the basis for the environmental planning qualities put forward by town planning reformers who hoped to create a preventative environment. Reformers believed they could achieve healthier living conditions and help conquer tuberculosis through the means of housing improvement, slum clearance, open space provision and street layout with all of these combining in garden city and suburb design. This article explores the work of health and town planning advocates in South Australia in order to uncover just how much the fight against tuberculosis influenced the beginnings of the crusade for town planning.