Towards healthy urbanism: inclusive, equitable and sustainable (THRIVES) – an urban design and planning framework from theory to praxis

ABSTRACT

The globally distributed health impacts of environmental degradation and widening population inequalities require a fundamental shift in understandings of healthy urbanism – including policies and decisions that shape neighbourhood and building design. The built environment tends to disadvantage or exclude women, children, the elderly, disabled, poor and other groups, starting from design and planning stages through to occupation, and this results in avoidable health impacts. Although these concepts are not new, they are rapidly emerging as built environment research and practice priorities without clear understanding of the interconnected aims of healthy environments that are sustainable, equitable and inclusive. This article promotes a new framework – Towards Healthy uRbanism: InclusiVe Equitable Sustainable (THRIVES) – that extends previous conceptualisations and reorients focus towards the existential threat of environmental breakdown and the social injustice created through inequitable and exclusive urban governance and design processes and outcomes. The Framework was developed through synthesising knowledge from research and practice, and by testing this new conceptualisation in a participatory workshop. Ongoing research is exploring implementation of the Framework in practice. If widely adopted, this Framework may contribute towards achieving the goals of sustainable development through a focus on increasing human health and wellbeing in urban development.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban
• health and wellbeing
• design
• planning

This article is related to:

Research for city practice

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Gemma Moore, Isobel Braithwaite and collaborators at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity for their support in discussing the evolution of the Framework. I am also grateful to Hugh Barton, Marcus Grant and the anonymous peer reviewers for providing feedback on early drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The development of the training programme has been funded by a Bartlett Innovation Fund award at University College London. The advisory group includes representatives from Faculty of Public Health, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity, London Healthy Place Network, Public Health England, Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors, Royal Town Planning Institute, Town & Country Planning Association and other organisations.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by funding from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity and the Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health project (Wellcome Trust grant 209387/Z/17/Z).

Notes on contributors

Helen Pineo

Helen Pineo is a Lecturer in Sustainable & Healthy Built Environments in the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at University College London. Prior to 2018 she was a practicing urban planner (MRTPI) integrating health and sustainability into new developments and planning policy, in the UK and internationally. Her research and practice have focused on the topics of sustainable urbanisation, health, equity and climate change.