Healthy urban planning in European cities.
This article describes the WHO 'healthy urban planning' (HUP) initiative as it has developed through the laboratory of the Healthy Cities movement and evaluates the degree to which applicant cities successfully developed plans for HUP. The paper provides a brief historical perspective on the relationship of health and planning and an overview of the ways in which urban spatial development affects health. It then turns to the WHO European Healthy Cities Network (WHO-EHCN) and explains the evolution of the HUP programme through Phase III (1998-2002) of the Healthy Cities Project, showing how the programme has grown from experimental beginnings to being 'mainstreamed' in Phase IV (2003-2008). Each city wishing to join the WHO-EHCN in this latter phase produced a programme for further development of HUP, and these were assessed by the Bristol Collaborating Centre. The paper presents the overall results, concluding that a significant progress has been made and the most advanced cities have much to offer municipalities everywhere in the best practice for integrating health into urban planning.
Barton
Hugh
H
WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Cities and Urban Policy, School of Built and NaturalEnvironment, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom. hugh.barton@uwe.ac.uk
Grant
Marcus
M
Mitcham
Claire
C
Tsourou
Catherine
C
D002958:City Planning / Q000266:history / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005060:Europe; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D016730:Program Development / Q000592:standards; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods; D014504:Urban Health; D014944:World Health Organization