Global urbanization is happening at an unprecedented rate, at a time when creating and maintaining environments that deliver for the health and well-being of people and communities is coming to the forefront of national and local decision-making. In City of Well-Being: A Radical Guide to Planning, Hugh Barton advocates a comprehensive vision for how urban planning can build cities that act as human habitats with health and well-being at the center. Barton takes the reader on a journey from the philosophy and origins of good town planning, through to the challenges facing modern planners, and the real-politik of delivering good town planning. City of Well-Being, in capturing the science, the politics and the governance of planning, is a vision, an introduction and a roadmap to town planning and urban policy development for health and well-being.
The book is divided into five parts. Part I ‘Orientation’ lays out the supporting arguments for people-focused planning, a conceptual framework (the ‘Settlement health map’) with a strong call for a planner’s code of ethics, where planning is once again oriented towards human well-being. Part II ‘Inspiration’ presents the lessons from history for modern planning, reminding the readers of the importance of a safe, convenient and equitable environment with a strong sense of place.
Barton effectively uses the ‘Settlement health map’ to summarize the available scientific evidence in Part III ‘Cognition’, before moving the reader to the route map for healthy planning in Part IV ‘Navigation’. Part V ‘Perspiration’ concludes the book with the reality of land, power and process, and provides a robust book-end to a strong volume.
Equity and social justice provide a compass throughout this thoughtful work, and the use of the ‘Settlement health map’ provides a clear and values-based framework for Barton’s main arguments and presentation of a vision – or renaissance of an earlier vision – for planners and planning. The proposal to use human health and well-being as a code of ethics stands out as both an inspired call to arms for planners around the globe, as well as an illustration of Barton’s committed and thorough reflection on the science and art of town planning. It would have been interesting to explore some of the issues raised in Part V further, particularly in the chapter looking at governance, as this section presents the real-politik of implementing health urban planning in contemporary contexts, reminding the reader that planning is not independent of other forces, actors and dynamic interactions.
Barton’s timely contribution to the body of work on urban planning calls for a transformative approach to planning, in order to build urban places and environments that deliver for human health and well-being for all, through a sensitive ecological approach. This reflects the global calls for transformative action under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. He makes several references to the previous and ongoing work under the WHO Healthy Cities movement, most recently delivered in Europe under the ongoing implementation of Health 2020, the European strategy and policy framework for health and well-being for all, and the philosophy behind the Healthy Cities movement has clearly inspired both Barton’s vision and the approach presented in this book.
This is a clear, well-written and comprehensive book, which provides an informative amble through planning, past, present and future. The aim of this book is to put people back at the heart of urban planning. Barton successfully demonstrates time and again that politics, economics and the spatial arrangement of cities are interdependent, and shape the social opportunities and well-being of the people and communities that dwell within them. The breadth of this book takes the reader through the principals and practice of healthy urban planning, via a backdrop of urban planning’s winding historical context and current political economy. This makes it suitable for both new and experienced colleagues, as well as the casual reader interested in an introduction to the health dimensions of building cities that work for all that live within them. The breadth of this book takes the reader through the principals and practice of healthy urban planning, via a backdrop of urban planning’s winding historical context and current political economy.