Urban Planning and Public Health in a Rapidly Urbanising World

osted January 3, 2014 by cliffhague

The celebration of the centenary of the RTPI this year, and the centenary of the International Federation for Housing and Planning in 2013 are reminders of the origins of modern urban planning, and in particular of the historic links between planning and public health. A century on, the time is ripe to look at the links between health and place globally. The illnesses and premature mortality which the founding fathers of town planning sought to eradicate by better housing, more open space and access to community facilities still stalk the billion people who live in slums today.
The case for preventative health care is a familiar one. It makes sense to keep people healthy. We also pretty much know how to do this. Diet and exercise figure prominently. What is less frequently discussed is the relation between health and place. Perhaps this is not surprising. A publication last year by the World Economic Forum  remarked “Much of the current debate on the future of health is characterized by short-term and siloed thinking and entrenched positions. A short-term view encourages solutions that deliver immediate results and discourages conversations about more fundamental changes that might only bear fruit in the long term. A lack of cross-stakeholder dialogue constrains the finding of solutions outside the traditional approaches to healthcare.”
Health and urbanisation