Topics applied into action

In the aftermath of conflict, cities prioritize reconstruction, but green spaces often get left behind. This study delves into how residents of post-conflict cities engage with urban parks, providing valuable knowledge for decision-makers to unlock the full potential of these green havens for social cohesion and well-being.

Improper solid waste management causes significant environmental damage. In India, solid waste management is a major challenge, particularly for urban local bodies. While larger cities have access to sufficient funds to provide solid waste management services, smaller cities with limited resources struggle to sustain financially viable solid waste management operations. Consequently, solid waste often ends up in landfills, contaminating the environment instead of being processed effectively. At the same time, the excessive use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture degrades soil health and further contaminates the environment.

Play streets are gaining popularity around the world. In French cities, more and more residents and local associations wish to develop play streets. One-off play streets are especially popular to introduce residents to the concept of a play street. However, there is little research outlining the key contextual elements for developing long-term or recurring play streets; these confront different obstacles than one-off play streets and require different efforts from those developing the play street.

Monitoring slum health through ecological deprivation indexes is a useful strategy to understand and reduce health inequalities within a city. We developed a robust socioenvironmental index capable of explaining health outcomes in small intraurban areas and differentiating areas with the presence of different slum typologies and non-slum spaces.

We conducted a citizen science project to engage with current residents in higher density residences in Northern Sydney to explore the positive and negative aspects of their lived experiences on their health and wellbeing. Together, we identified the elements that residents of these communities value as well as those with potential negative impacts that could be mitigated through good planning and design.

Social sustainability entails improving quality of life by addressing basic human needs, promoting well-being, and creating supportive communities. Our approach prioritizes the inclusion of human needs in neighborhood design to enhance the overall quality of a neighborhood’s physical environment.

Living in modern cities can increase cardiovascular disease risk. This study analyzes the association between urban design and obesity, proposing a simplified index to assess how the built environment impacts heart health. Our "Urban-Obesity-Index" helps local authorities and planners design healthier neighbourhoods.

We completed a scoping literature review to determine how existing literature addresses regenerative design principles in the context of mixed-use buildings, and to determine what opportunities exist to advance the knowledge and implementation of regenerative design performance areas.

Understanding of the influence of local political actors helps to highlight where their influence is limited, particularly by national-level housing policy, which in the UK is focused on housing numbers, rather than quality of new homes, as well as financial viability and public opinion. Understanding this can help to build trust in the political processes of decision-making and inform interventions for healthier place-making.

This study contributes to the broader discourse on urban design for children, offering insights into how cities can create more inclusive, engaging, and health-promoting environments. It supports and adds to existing literature, finding that the alignment of play initiatives with public health goals, and strong collaboration between local government departments are effective in supporting children’s play on the strategic level. It identifies barriers to play in policy, namely budget constraints and deprioritisation of play.

Urban environments in many cities, both those found in Mexico and many other countries, can be called obesogenic - they are prone to promote obesity. Relevant factors are that they foster sedentary behaviour, poor dietary choices, and elevated stress levels; thus contributing to higher obesity rates. Urban planning, design, and practices offer opportunities for upstream public health interventions to mitigate these negative health impacts. These findings are especially relevant given the role of neighbourhood environments in encouraging children's physical activity and reducing obesity.

Beaches can be important settings for physical activity. The quality of these spaces (safety, amenities, aesthetics) can influence how well they support physical activity and health. The quality of beaches may differ across neighbourhoods, with higher socioeconomic status neighbourhoods having disproportionately better access to beaches.