Designing Future Cities For Wellbeing

Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing draws on original research that brings together dimensions of cities we know have a bearing on our health and wellbeing – including transportation, housing, energy, and foodways – and illustrates the role of design in delivering cities in the future that can enhance our health and wellbeing. It aims to demonstrate that cities are a complex interplay of these various dimensions that both shape and are shaped by existing and emerging city structures, governance, design, and planning. Explaining how to consider these interconnecting dimensions in the way in which professionals and citizens think about and design the city for future generations’ health and wellbeing, therefore, is key. The chapters draw on UK case and research examples and make comparison to international cities and examples. This book will be of great interest to researchers and students in planning, public policy, public health, and design.

Overcrowding, noise and air pollution, long commutes and lack of daylight can take a huge toll on the mental well-being of city-dwellers. With mental healthcare services under increasing pressure, could a better approach to urban design and planning provide a solution? The restrictions faced by city residents around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought home just how much urban design can affect our mental health – and created an imperative to seize this opportunity. Restorative Cities explores a new way of designing cities, one which places mental health and wellness at the forefront. Establishing a blueprint for urban design for mental health, it examines a range of strategies – from sensory architecture to place-making for creativity and community – and brings a genuinely evidence-based approach that will appeal to designers and planners, health practitioners and researchers alike - and provide compelling insights for anyone who cares about how our surroundings affect us. Written by a psychiatrist and public health specialist, and an environmental psychologist with extensive experience of architectural practice, this much-needed work will prompt debate and inspire built environment students and professionals to think more about the positive potential of their designs for mental well-being.

The ways in which urban areas have evolved over the past 100 years have deeply influenced the lives of the communities that live in them. Some influences have been positive and, in the UK, people are healthier and live longer than ever before. However, other influences have contributed to non-communicable health inequalities and poorer well-being for some in society. Today many people suffer as a consequence of 'lifestyle diseases', such as those associated with growing obesity rates and harmful consumption of alcohol. The threat of these health issues is so acute that life expectancy of future generations may begin to decline. Healthy Cities? explores the ways in which the development of the built environment has contributed to health and well-being problems and how the physical design of the places we live may support, or constrain, healthy lifestyle choices. It sets out how understanding these relationships more fully may lead to policy and practice that reduces health inequalities, increases well-being and allows people to live more flourishing, fulfilling lives. Illustrated by case studies from the UK and elsewhere, it examines the consequences 'car orientated' design; the 'to

Are pandemics the end of cities? Or, do they present an opportunity for us to reshape cities in ways making us even more innovative, successful and sustainable? Pandemics such as COVID-19 (and comparable disruptions) have caused intense debates over the future of cities. Through a series of investigative studies, Designing Smart and Resilient Cities for a Post-Pandemic World: Metropandemic Revolution seeks to critically discuss and compare different cases, innovations and approaches as to how cities can utilise nascent and future digital technology and/or new strategies in order to build stronger resilience to better tackle comparable large-scale pandemics and/or disruptions in the future. The authors identify ten separate societal areas where future digital technology can impact resilience. These are discussed in individual chapters. Each chapter concludes with a set of proposed "action points" based on the conclusions of each respective study. These serve as solid policy recommendations of what courses of action to take, to help increase the resilience in smart cities for each designated area. Securing resilience and cohesion between each area will bring about the metropandemic revolution. This book features a foreword by Nobel laureate Peter C. Doherty and an afterword by Professor of Urban Technologies, Carlo Ratti. It provides fresh and unique insights on smart cities and futures studies in a pandemic context, offers profound reflections on contemporary societal functions and the needs to build resilience and combines lessons learned from historical pandemics with possibilities offered by future technology.

This book represents a multidisciplinary and international vision across different countries in Europe that are facing similar challenges about ageing and quality of life in present cities. It is divided in three main topics from the global context of health in cities and reduction of health inequities to the current research of different study cases, focusing on residential models and the relationship with the built environment. The third chapter illustrates best practices with some study cases from different cities in Europe. Friendlier environments for older people come together with the need of innovation, smart and updated technologies, healthier environments and mitigation of climate change. Health re-appears nowadays as one of the priorities for urban planning and design, not only for the communicable diseases and the effect of the pandemics, but also for the non-communicable diseases, that were also triggering the wellbeing and equity of our cities. Indeed, the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted health inequities and vulnerabilities of those areas of the city that were already deprived and facing other health problems, such as obesity, diabetes, social isolation, respiratory problems or mental health issues, specifically applying for vulnerable groups. Older adults have been one of the most affected groups from the pandemic’s threats and derived consequences. In this context, the care crisis arises intertwined with the design and planning of our cities, where there is an urgent need to regenerate our environments with a perspective of sustainability, inclusion, and health prevention and promotion. From the global urban challenges to the specific contextualisation of each city and study cases, each chapter offers an updated insight of the main questions that we should consider to address urban planning and design from the perspective of ageing and social inclusion in European cities.

In modern-day society the main threats to public health are now considered ‘avoidable illnesses’, which are often caused by a lack of exercise and physical activity. Research suggests that architectural and urban design strategies play an important role in reducing the amount of avoidable illnesses by enabling physical activity through healthier streets. Practitioners must now consider how they can encourage people to lead healthier lifestyles and improve health through urban design. This book presents the path to healthier cities through six core themes - urban planning, walkable communities, neighbourhood building blocks, movement networks, environmental integration and community empowerment. Each theme is presented with an overview of the issues, the solutions and how to apply them practically with exemplars and precedents. It's an essential text that provides practitioners across urban design, architecture, master planning with the necessary knowledge and guidance to understand their role in producing healthier places and put it in to practice.

The environment that we construct affects both humans and our natural world in myriad ways. There is a pressing need to create healthy places and to reduce the health threats inherent in places already built. However, there has been little awareness of the adverse effects of what we have constructed-or the positive benefits of well designed built environments. This book provides a far-reaching follow-up to the pathbreaking Urban Sprawl and Public Health, published in 2004. That book sparked a range of inquiries into the connections between constructed environments, particularly cities and suburbs, and the health of residents, especially humans. Since then, numerous studies have extended and refined the book's research and reporting. Making Healthy Places offers a fresh and comprehensive look at this vital subject today. There is no other book with the depth, breadth, vision, and accessibility that this book offers. In addition to being of particular interest to undergraduate and graduate students in public health and urban planning, it will be essential reading for public health officials, planners, architects, landscape architects, environmentalists, and all those who care about the design of their communities. Like a well-trained doctor, Making Healthy Places presents a diagnosis of--and offers treatment for--problems related to the built environment. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, with contributions from experts in a range of fields, it imparts a wealth of practical information, with an emphasis on demonstrated and promising solutions to commonly occurring problems.

As smart cities are rapidly developing, it is vital that they are built on a combination of support and active participation of self-decisive, independent, and aware citizens by ensuring strong human capital, social capital, and information and communications technology infrastructure. Due to this evolution across the globe, it is critical to examine how others are working to create smarter cities in order to learn and revolutionize the way cities are planned and executed. Planning and Designing Smart Cities in Developing Nations explores smart city implementation in developing countries by highlighting the challenges and opportunities of smart cities and showcasing various developments and accomplishments and presents a framework to implement strategic plans for smart development. Covering topics such as smart technologies and social capital, it is ideal for policymakers, economic and development professionals, city planners and designers, government officials, academicians, professors, and students.