Inequities in Cities and in Urban Health

As cities grow and thrive, urban populations have access to more resources and better health than has ever been the case in human history. However, at the same time, the material gaps between the haves and have-nots are also starker in cities, where large populations live in close proximity, than they are anywhere else. These social divides map onto health divides, creating health haves and health have-nots, thus threatening to create two classes of population in close geographic proximity. This chapter discusses the challenge of resource inequities in cities and how these inequities become health inequities.