How does urban planning influence public health?
An introduction to the role of active design in sustainable city planning practices.
How a city is planned and designed determines how residents use it. The Healthy Cities Model helps to guide and organize city planners as well as government officials to support projects that promote healthy eating, sustainability, physical activity through transportation and recreation, as well as safety and community engagement. The act of designing these elements is called active design and like the Healthy Cities Model, has been adopted by architects and urban designers around the world.
Active design reflects on ways the design of a city can determine how its residents use it and with that how the city can shape a person’s lifestyle choices.
The idea that the built environment can influence health dates back to the 19th century in New York City where environmental design helped to reduce the prevalence of infectious diseases. Today, urban metropolises such as New York City are met with the public health concern of our time, obesity and other chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, and diabetes. While environmental design helped to improve health historically, active design has the power to transform the health of modern day cities by improving access to healthier options that improve ones overall wellbeing.
Implementing active design helps to foster physical activity by developing spaces and streets that encourage walking, bicycling, and other forms of active transportation and recreation (Active Design Guidelines, 2010).
There are several strategies that active urban design uses to achieve such goals. Having a well-connected network of streets and a good public transportation system provide people with the opportunity to drive less and walk more. Additionally, a dense and diverse mix of land uses encourages physical activity as well, allowing for active transportation to become a more convenient option rather than driving from one location to another.
Street design that is developed to be safe, beautiful, and vibrant becomes a tool for promoting walking and bicycling in all age groups (Active Design Guidelines, 2010). Safety is a common theme that runs through the promotion and acceptance of active design in different communities. Adequate lighting, protected bike lanes, and sustainable maintenance of open space are just some recommendations that can help to make physical activity and active travel a more enticing option.
Active design has proven its benefits through the Healthy Cities Model as well as through other city and local plans. Globally, there are a variety of projects that have incorporated such design measures to either promote active travel, healthy eating, physical activity through recreation, or community participation. One project in particular, the Superkilen Urban Park in Copenhagen, represents ways to transform and beautify a space through public participation and the involvement of active design principles.
The Superkilen
The Superkilen, in Copenhagen, is an exceptional example of how public participation can support the design and implementation of an active design project. The surrounding community of Nørrebro is made up on 60 different nationalities and is one of the most ethnically and economically diverse neighborhoods in the country (Center for Active Design, 2010). Built into the existing urban fabric, the project is made up of creative designs that support physical activity and community gathering.
The bicycle lane, that spans the entirety of the park, connects it to the already existing and prominent cycling network in the area, allowing for the space to act a scenic and colorful detour. The Superkilen makes it a point not only to provide areas for physical activity, but to provide a range of possibilities that allow this diverse community to come together. As integral part of the surrounding communities, the most important element the Superkilen offers is all around accessibility, allowing for the urban environment to take on a recreational form.
Identifying Healthy Cities as the overall model for building a healthier, more engaged community, we can then focus in on how the model helps to improve and create access to safe physical activity at a neighborhood level.
**This piece is an excerpt from my Masters thesis on active design in East Harlem, New York. I will be posting other selections in the future that I find interesting and relevant to the field of healthy urban planning.
