Urban Planning

Abstract

Cities ultimately are human-made environments. It is this very feature of cities that makes them an appealing target for population health inquiry. That they have been created means that they can also be modified and improved to the end of improving the health of their resident populations. Urban planning is concerned with the development and use of land in urban environments and, in this context, can play a central role in how we may think about optimizing urban environments to improve health. This chapter introduces an urban planning perspective on urban health, discussing how a formal urban planning framework can improve our understanding of the health of urban populations.