The Healthy Cities Movement

The World Health Association Healthy Cities movement aims to engage municipal governments in a range of activities to generate health in cities, through political commitment, institutional change, capacity building, and innovative action for health, equity and sustainable development. At core, the movement aims to put health at the heart of social, economic, and cultural agendas of city government and has been at the forefront of a global move toward recognizing cities’ potential to transform themselves to improve their residents’ health. More than 100 cities are part of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network. This chapter discusses the vision behind, goals of, challenges faced by, and successes of the healthy cities movement, with an eye to lessons learned that can be applied more broadly to urban health.