Good cities and healthy communities in the USA

Abstract

Components of conventional city form in the USA have been discussed in public health literature as elements adding to the health-related problems that occur owing to lack of exercise and healthy diet. City planning literature provides prescriptions for good city form with little reference to public health. This paper attempts to align the components of good city form with the expected performance requirements for healthy communities. The good city form components are articulated to improve ‘operationalisation’ of that variable in public health literature. The performance requirements for healthy communities are aligned with good city form components to emphasise the viability of including those elements in current practice of city planning for sustainability.

Review: Good Urbanism: Six Steps to Creating Prosperous Places

“…Her prior “Urbanisms” were largely focused on establishing the what of their respective subjects; in this book, she diverts from that pattern to emphasize the how of good urbanism, beginning by establishing that “there is now a virtual consensus among planners and urban designers about what constitutes good urbanism” (1). On the basis of a recent meta-analysis of the prescriptions of theorists such as Scott Campbell, Kevin Lynch, Abraham Maslow, Peter Calthorpe, Doug Farr, and Witold Rybczynski as to a set of common good city form elements, Ellin considers the what of good urbanism as established (Toker and Minassians 2012). Instead, the rest of the book leads us through multiple process models, sets of desired qualities, and attitudinal approaches that can be used, both individually and in alignment, to achieve good urbanism.…”