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The practice of stormwater management has evolved from a singular focus on drainage to a multifaceted approach to support the integrated urban development of healthy, livable, ecological, and water sensitive cities from neighborhood to metropolitan scales. A review of the knowledge base and practice by the professional stormwater management community shows attributes that favor an integrative approach to achieve co-benefits across sectors. Research into stormwater management addresses its functional areas of drainage, flood control, flood plain management, water quality control, urban ecology, recreation, and city beautification. Legacy path dependance affects the potential to reform land use practices, while stormwater management practice is affected by climate change, sea level rise, urbanization, inequality, and poor governance. This review shows a status where technical methods are well advanced but integrative frameworks to address social, ecological and infrastructure needs are more challenging. The sensitivity of ecological issues is most evident in cities in coastal zones. Organizational initiatives are needed to counter the neglect of essential maintenance and sustain flood risk reduction in cities. Stormwater management is related to other integrative tools, including IWRM, One Water, One Health, and Integrated Flood Management, as well as the broader concept of urban planning. This research review demonstrates the opportunities and needs for the advancement of an integrated approach to stormwater management to support urban development. Stormwater capture and rainfall harvesting offer major opportunities to augment scarce water supplies. Nature-based solutions like low-impact development and the sponge city concept show promise to transform cities. Major cities face challenges to sustain conveyance corridors for major flows and to store and treat combined sewer runoff. The neighborhood focus of stormwater management elevates the importance of participation and inclusion to advance environmental justice and strengthen social capital. Integrating organizational initiatives from local to city scales and funding improvements to stormwater systems are major challenges that require leadership from higher governance levels, although governments face resistance to change toward integration, especially in countries with poor land use and public works management systems. Finding solutions to neighborhood issues and the connectivity of water systems at larger scales requires complex approaches to urban planning and represent an important agenda for urban and water governance going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating healthy street environments to encourage physical activity is an effective strategy against non-communicable diseases exacerbated by rapid urbanization globally. Developing countries face more significant health challenges than developed ones. However, existing research predominantly focuses on the perspective of developed countries. To address the health challenges in developing nations, studies should not only draw on the findings from developed countries but also clearly define unique research processes and pathways. Consequently, this study conducts a comparative analysis between China, representing developing countries, and developed nations, using databases like China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science (WOS) and tools such as Citespace, Bicomb, and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to explore research hotspots, developmental trajectories, thematic categories, and trends. The findings reveal a shift in developed countries from macro-material to micro-environmental elements under multidisciplinary scrutiny, while future topics may include street space evaluations and psychological healing. In China, research has been dominated by different disciplines at various stages, starting with medical attention to chronic disease prevention, which then shifted to traffic engineering's focus on constructing green travel environments, and finally expanded to disciplines like landscape architecture examining the impact of street environment elements on pedestrian behavioural perceptions. Future themes will focus on promoting elderly health and urban health transport systems. Generally, research in developed countries exhibits a "bottom-up" approach, with practical issues at a "post-evaluation" stage, primarily based on the "socio-ecological model" and emphasizing multidisciplinary collaboration. Chinese research shows a "top-down" characteristic, driven by national policies and at a "pre-planning" stage, integrating theories such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and attention restoration theory, with relatively loose disciplinary cooperation. Overall, research is shifting from macro to human-centric scales and is progressively utilizing multi-source and multi-scale big data analysis methods. Based on this, future research and development recommendations are proposed for developing countries, with China as a representative example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By 2050, an estimated 69% of the global population will reside in urban areas, underscoring the pivotal role of city neighbourhoods in enhancing quality of life by respecting and accommodating diverse identities and needs. The physical environment of neighbourhoods significantly influences community health and well-being, alongside social factors and access to health services. In Italy, prioritising health-promoting and accessible designs in neighbourhoods can form a solid foundation for urban health strategies. This study introduces a theoretical framework developed for the Healthy Neighbourhoods Hub (HNH) project in Florence, Italy, aiming to enhance health and accessibility across different scales. The HNH framework categorises healthy and inclusive neighbourhoods into 7 themes, 25 general characteristics, and 67 specific attributes, supported by verifiable variables derived from comprehensive research and design tools. This innovative framework addresses the need for multilevel, multidisciplinary approaches, and spatialization efforts to ensure equitable benefits for all community members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and aging are important urban concerns. However, the associations between PM2.5 constituents and the acceleration of aging (AA) remain unclear. We included 16,051 adults (aged 25–80 years) with 19,252 medical observations in Taiwan during 2008−2017. 2-year average PM2.5 and its five major constituents were assessed using a two-stage machine learning model at a resolution of 1 km2. AA was determined by the difference between the Klemera–Doubal biological age and chronological age. A linear mixed model (LMM) with inverse probability weights was used to examine the associations between AA and air pollution. In a semi-randomized study design, we applied a post-matching LMM to assess the impacts of changes in air pollution exposure on AA. Each interquartile range increase in ambient PM2.5, SO4-2, NO3–, NH4+, organic matters (OM), and black carbon (BC) was associated with a 0.20 (95 %confidence interval [CI]: 0.17–0.24), 0.19 (0.15–0.23), 0.14 (0.11–0.18), 0.21 (0.17–0.24), 0.22 (0.19–0.26) and 0.25 (0.21–0.28) year increase in AA, respectively. BC was generally associated with the greatest increase in AA as compared to other constituents. We did not find evident thresholds in their concentration–response associations. Participants exposed to increased levels of PM2.5, SO4-2, NO3–, NH4+, OM, and BC experienced an increase in AA of 0.11 (−0.07–0.29), 0.20 (0.02–0.39), 0.15 (−0.02–0.33), 0.12 (−0.07–0.31), 0.24 (0.07–0.41), and 0.30 (0.07–0.52) years, respectively, compared to those exposed to decreased/unchanged levels. Long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 and its constituents may accelerate biological aging among Chinese adults. Exposed to increased levels may further aggregate the aging process. This study suggests that reducing exposure to air pollution is beneficial, even for residents within moderately-to-highly polluted regions, such as Taiwan. Rigorous regulation of PM2.5 and its constituents may prevent the acceleration of biological age.

Vehicular air pollution has created an ongoing air quality and public health crisis. Despite growing knowledge of racial injustice in exposure levels, less is known about the relationship between the production of and exposure to such pollution. This study assesses pollution burden by testing whether local populations' vehicular air pollution exposure is proportional to how much they drive. Through a Los Angeles, California case study we examine how this relates to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status---and how these relationships vary across the region. We find that, all else equal, tracts whose residents drive less are exposed to more air pollution, as are tracts with a less-White population. Commuters from majority-White tracts disproportionately drive through non-White tracts, compared to the inverse. Decades of racially-motivated freeway infrastructure planning and residential segregation shape today's disparities in who produces vehicular air pollution and who is exposed to it, but opportunities exist for urban planning and transport policy to mitigate this injustice.

Copyright of Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal is the property of World Health Organization and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The concepts of healthy cities and smart cities are popular in emerging research in the 21st century. This study focuses on the existing interrelations between the two notions in terms of socio-spatial quality, technology, and innovation, particularly regarding industrial sites that no longer have a role and constitute 'urban voids' with high volumetric concentrations. The fast expansion of cities and the de-industrialization phenomena have resulted in such void-producing blights that compromise public health; environmental quality; and social, economic, and living conditions. Therefore, the authors intend to emphasize the relevance of citizens' and communities' engagement in shaping new healthy and smart urban environments. The present method relies on a literature review to describe the current theoretical and practical dimensions of such topics, identifying synergies and trade-offs. After this, a case study in China is presented to support the discussion. The site, a former granary, is located in Lianshi, a traditional water-edge town in the central area of the Yangtze River Delta. The proposed example enhances solutions that meet healthy and smart requirements, transforming the former industrial area into a social catalyst, acting as an effective motivator for urban development. One such theoretical approach is exemplified by a project that won a national architecture competition in 2018, the 'Taihu Cultural Heritage Rehabilitation Competition'. The latter is then validated through practical solutions in a real-world context by analyzing the 'Cuckoo' project developed in 2021 for the same area. Overall, the integration of healthy and smart elements is proposed by the authors as an effective method to achieve more holistic and sustainable city development from both theoretical and practical points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scoping review of the literature explores the following question: what systematic measures are needed to achieve a healthy city? The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests 11 characteristics of a healthy city. Measures contributing to these characteristics are extracted and classified into 29 themes. Implementation of some of these measures is illustrated by examples from Freiburg, Greater Vancouver, Singapore, Seattle, New York City, London, Nantes, Exeter, Copenhagen, and Washington, DC. The identified measures and examples indicate that a healthy city is a system of healthy sectors. A discussion section suggests healthy directions for nine sectors in a healthy city. These sectors include transportation, housing, schools, city planning, local government, environmental management, retail, heritage, and healthcare. Future work is advised to put more focus on characteristic 5 (i.e., the meeting of basic needs for all the city's people) and characteristic 10 (i.e., public health and sick care services accessible to all) of a healthy city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban liveability is a global priority for creating healthy, sustainable cities. Measurement of policy-relevant spatial indicators of the built and natural environment supports city planning at all levels of government. Analysis of their spatial distribution within cities, and impacts on individuals and communities, is crucial to ensure planning decisions are effective and equitable. This paper outlines challenges and lessons from a 5-year collaborative research program, scaling up a software workflow for calculating a composite indicator of urban liveability for residential address points across Melbourne, to Australia's 21 largest cities, and further extension to 25 global cities in diverse contexts.

Benchmarking and monitoring urban design and transport features is critical to achieving local and international health and sustainability goals. However, most urban indicator frameworks use coarse spatial scales that only allow between-city comparisons or require expensive, technical, local spatial analyses for within-city comparisons. This study developed a reusable open-source urban indicator computational framework using open data to enable consistent local and global comparative analyses. We demonstrate this framework by calculating spatial indicators—for 25 diverse cities in 19 countries—of urban design and transport features that support health and sustainability. We link these indicators to cities’ policy contexts and identify populations living above and below critical thresholds for physical activity through walking. Efforts to broaden participation in crowdsourcing data and to calculate globally consistent indicators are essential for planning evidence-informed urban interventions, monitoring policy impacts, and learning lessons from peer cities to achieve health, equity, and sustainability goals.

The Israeli Healthy Cities Network (IHCN), as one of the accredited networks of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network in its seventh phase, started mapping the level of adoption and efforts that are being made towards achieving the 17SDGs. Data for all 55 member cities was collected from the most recent online national databases. As not all indicators are available in national data sets, an online questionnaire was distributed to all 55 cities' health coordinators, via e-mail, to acquire the needed data; 45 of the 55 replied (81.8% response rate). All SDG measures were analyzed by socio-economic cluster (SEC) using one-way ANOVA. Implementation of some indicators was checked for association with population size of municipalities, as well as structure and process measures of the healthy cities' operation. Cities implement between 4 and 14 SDGs, and 98% implement SDG3, while the lowest implementations are of SDG13 (44%) and SDG12 (28%). Cities in higher SECs are in a better position in relation to most SDGs. However, cities in a low SEC can achieve implementation of at least some of the goals through policy and commitment. This study provides municipalities with a baseline for tracking future progress and a tool for mapping gaps in implementation. The methodology and tools presented here could be used by any municipality, as well as by national networks and other governance bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

التغير المناخي أصبح مشكلة عالمية ويترتب عليه الكثير من المشكلات التي تؤثر بشكل مباشر على حياة الأفراد. وهذا الأمر البيئي له مسببات مباشرة وغير مباشرة يتسبب بها الفرد، وبالتالي يتأثر بها في صور مختلفة قد تؤدى إلى مستوي معيشي سيء نتيجة لتدهور البيئة الطبيعية، موارد الطاقة، الانبعاثات الكربونية إلى جانب التأثير السلبي على صحة الأفراد. وأهداف الاستدامة تطالب بتحقيق مدن آمنة، مستدامة ومرنة مثل المدن الصحية للتكيف مع التغير المناخي وما يترتب عليه. لهذا كان توجه الورقة البحثية نحو تقديم حل إلزامي لتحسين بيئة الأفراد في مواجهة تلك المؤثرات من أجل تحقيق مدن صحية توفر جودة الحياة وخاصة على النطاق المحلى. فتناولت الورقة البحثية توضيح مفهوم التغير المناخي من مسببات وعوائق وعلاقته بالمدن وقاطنيها وصولا إلى أهمية تحقيق مدن تتناول جودة معيشية للأفراد قاطنيها حتى يتحقق مفهوم المدن الصحية. لذلك فقد اعتمد البحث على المنهج الاستقرائي حيث يقوم البحث بتناول المفاهيم والمعايير التي توضح ماهية المدن الصحية ومقارنتها بالمدن التقليدية يليه تحليل لمعايير المدن الصحية وعمل استبانة لمتخصصين وغير متخصصين لإدراك مدى الوعي البيئي وتقييمهم لآليا ت ومعايير تصميم المدينة الصحية من أجل الوصول لمخطط تنفيذي لتحويل المدن التقليدية لمدن صحية داخل مصر. Climate change has become a global problem with many problems directly affecting people's lives. This environmental order has direct and indirect causes caused by the individual and is therefore influenced in diverse ways that may lead to a poor standard of living because of the degradation of the natural environment, energy resources, carbon emissions and the negative impact on individuals' health. Sustainability goals demand safe, sustainable, and resilient cities such as healthy cities to adapt to climate change and its consequences. The paper was therefore geared towards providing a compulsory solution to improve people's environment in the face of those impacts to achieve healthy cities that provide quality of life, especially on the local scale. The paper explains the concept of climate change as a cause and impediment and its relationship with cities and their inhabitants to achieve cities that address the quality of life of their inhabitants so that the concept of healthy cities can be achieved. The research is based on the inductive approach. The research addresses the concepts and criteria that illustrate what healthy cities are and compare them with traditional cities. That followed by an analysis of the standards of healthy cities and a questionnaire of specialists and non-specialists to understand the extent of environmental awareness and their assessment of the mechanism and the design criteria of a healthy city to achieve an operational scheme to transform traditional cities into healthy cities within Egypt.

Urban planning has long pursued the improvement of health and wellbeing through the rapidly evolving scholarship and practice of health-supportive environments, underpinned by the seminal World Health Organization’s Healthy Cities Framework. Although a much more recent development, technology has been informing urban planning, as well as advancing healthcare and personal wellbeing monitoring and assessment. Known as the Smart City movement, it has much to offer regarding life in towns and cities, as well as how they are managed, maintained, and developed. There is also a growing appreciation of the potential for smart city technology to enhance human and environmental health in the context of urban planning and public place making. This has been reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic with its reawakening of community interest in health and wellbeing, including mental illness, a greater awareness of the importance of local environments, and an explosion of technological knowhow in the embrace of remote working, online shopping, and education. Using the example of the authors’ “Smart Social Spaces” project, this entry discusses the potential benefits of an evolving integrative concept called “Smart Healthy Social Spaces”. The aim is to support community wellbeing as part of everyday living, especially associated with social connection, in densely populated and culturally diverse urban environments, where locally situated public spaces are increasingly important for all citizens.

The practice of stormwater management has evolved from a singular focus on drainage to a multifaceted approach to support the integrated urban development of healthy, livable, ecological, and water sensitive cities from neighborhood to metropolitan scales. A review of the knowledge base and practice by the professional stormwater management community shows attributes that favor an integrative approach to achieve co-benefits across sectors. Research into stormwater management addresses its functional areas of drainage, flood control, flood plain management, water quality control, urban ecology, recreation, and city beautification. Legacy path dependance affects the potential to reform land use practices, while stormwater management practice is affected by climate change, sea level rise, urbanization, inequality, and poor governance. This review shows a status where technical methods are well advanced but integrative frameworks to address social, ecological and infrastructure needs are more challenging. The sensitivity of ecological issues is most evident in cities in coastal zones. Organizational initiatives are needed to counter the neglect of essential maintenance and sustain flood risk reduction in cities. Stormwater management is related to other integrative tools, including IWRM, One Water, One Health, and Integrated Flood Management, as well as the broader concept of urban planning. This research review demonstrates the opportunities and needs for the advancement of an integrated approach to stormwater management to support urban development. Stormwater capture and rainfall harvesting offer major opportunities to augment scarce water supplies. Nature-based solutions like low-impact development and the sponge city concept show promise to transform cities. Major cities face challenges to sustain conveyance corridors for major flows and to store and treat combined sewer runoff. The neighborhood focus of stormwater management elevates the importance of participation and inclusion to advance environmental justice and strengthen social capital. Integrating organizational initiatives from local to city scales and funding improvements to stormwater systems are major challenges that require leadership from higher governance levels, although governments face resistance to change toward integration, especially in countries with poor land use and public works management systems. Finding solutions to neighborhood issues and the connectivity of water systems at larger scales requires complex approaches to urban planning and represent an important agenda for urban and water governance going forward.

Creating healthy street environments to encourage physical activity is an effective strategy against non-communicable diseases exacerbated by rapid urbanization globally. Developing countries face more significant health challenges than developed ones. However, existing research predominantly focuses on the perspective of developed countries. To address the health challenges in developing nations, studies should not only draw on the findings from developed countries but also clearly define unique research processes and pathways. Consequently, this study conducts a comparative analysis between China, representing developing countries, and developed nations, using databases like China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science (WOS) and tools such as Citespace, Bicomb, and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to explore research hotspots, developmental trajectories, thematic categories, and trends. The findings reveal a shift in developed countries from macro-material to micro-environmental elements under multidisciplinary scrutiny, while future topics may include street space evaluations and psychological healing. In China, research has been dominated by different disciplines at various stages, starting with medical attention to chronic disease prevention, which then shifted to traffic engineering’s focus on constructing green travel environments, and finally expanded to disciplines like landscape architecture examining the impact of street environment elements on pedestrian behavioural perceptions. Future themes will focus on promoting elderly health and urban health transport systems. Generally, research in developed countries exhibits a “bottom-up” approach, with practical issues at a “post-evaluation” stage, primarily based on the “socio-ecological model” and emphasizing multidisciplinary collaboration. Chinese research shows a “top-down” characteristic, driven by national policies and at a “pre-planning” stage, integrating theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and attention restoration theory, with relatively loose disciplinary cooperation. Overall, research is shifting from macro to human-centric scales and is progressively utilizing multi-source and multi-scale big data analysis methods. Based on this, future research and development recommendations are proposed for developing countries, with China as a representative example.

Despite the growing responsiveness in creating eco-friendly cities with reference to SDG 11, little attention has been focused on the role of Ghanaian local authorities (i.e., District Assemblies (DAs)) in achieving this global feat. Therefore, this study seeks to assess the views of personnel working with Ghana's District Assemblies on the achievement of healthy city development (HCD) through the lens of SDG 11. Data were obtained from 165 key personnel currently working with the District Assemblies in Ghana through structured close-ended questionnaires. The data gathered from the respondents were analyzed via descriptive and inferential statistics. Results from this study revealed that personnel working in the DAs of Ghana possess an average level of awareness of the SDG 11 indicators. Furthermore, the findings revealed a low level of achievement of development toward attaining healthy cities in Ghana. Subsequently, the findings also revealed four (4) critical challenges encountered in achieving HCD with the topmost being the 'lack of financial resources for implementing healthy city policies'. The findings from this study pioneer knowledge on the scarce literature sources on the topic within the Ghanaian context. It also provides insight into the current level of achievement of SDG 11 targets in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Definition: Urban planning has long pursued the improvement of health and wellbeing through the rapidly evolving scholarship and practice of health-supportive environments, underpinned by the seminal World Health Organization's Healthy Cities Framework. Although a much more recent development, technology has been informing urban planning, as well as advancing healthcare and personal wellbeing monitoring and assessment. Known as the Smart City movement, it has much to offer regarding life in towns and cities, as well as how they are managed, maintained, and developed. There is also a growing appreciation of the potential for smart city technology to enhance human and environmental health in the context of urban planning and public place making. This has been reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic with its reawakening of community interest in health and wellbeing, including mental illness, a greater awareness of the importance of local environments, and an explosion of technological knowhow in the embrace of remote working, online shopping, and education. Using the example of the authors' "Smart Social Spaces" project, this entry discusses the potential benefits of an evolving integrative concept called "Smart Healthy Social Spaces". The aim is to support community wellbeing as part of everyday living, especially associated with social connection, in densely populated and culturally diverse urban environments, where locally situated public spaces are increasingly important for all citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian accessibility is an important factor in urban transport and land use policy and critical for creating healthy, sustainable cities. Developing and evaluating indicators measuring inequalities in pedestrian accessibility can help planners and policymakers benchmark and monitor the progress of city planning interventions. However, measuring and assessing indicators of urban design and transport features at high resolution worldwide to enable city comparisons is challenging due to limited availability of official, high quality, and comparable spatial data, as well as spatial analysis tools offering customizable frameworks for indicator construction and analysis. To address these challenges, this study develops an open source software framework to construct pedestrian accessibility indicators for cities using open and consistent data. It presents a generalized method to consistently measure pedestrian accessibility at high resolution and spatially aggregated scale, to allow for both within- and between-city analyses. The open source and open data methods developed in this study can be extended to other cities worldwide to support local planning and policymaking. The software is made publicly available for reuse in an open repository.

The concepts of healthy cities and smart cities are popular in emerging research in the 21st century. This study focuses on the existing interrelations between the two notions in terms of socio-spatial quality, technology, and innovation, particularly regarding industrial sites that no longer have a role and constitute ‘urban voids’ with high volumetric concentrations. The fast expansion of cities and the de-industrialization phenomena have resulted in such void-producing blights that compromise public health; environmental quality; and social, economic, and living conditions. Therefore, the authors intend to emphasize the relevance of citizens’ and communities’ engagement in shaping new healthy and smart urban environments. The present method relies on a literature review to describe the current theoretical and practical dimensions of such topics, identifying synergies and trade-offs. After this, a case study in China is presented to support the discussion. The site, a former granary, is located in Lianshi, a traditional water-edge town in the central area of the Yangtze River Delta. The proposed example enhances solutions that meet healthy and smart requirements, transforming the former industrial area into a social catalyst, acting as an effective motivator for urban development. One such theoretical approach is exemplified by a project that won a national architecture competition in 2018, the ‘Taihu Cultural Heritage Rehabilitation Competition’. The latter is then validated through practical solutions in a real-world context by analyzing the ‘Cuckoo’ project developed in 2021 for the same area. Overall, the integration of healthy and smart elements is proposed by the authors as an effective method to achieve more holistic and sustainable city development from both theoretical and practical points of view.

One of the most important goals of urban management is to provide comfort and well-being for all citizens. According to the population trend of the world, a massive segment of the future population will be the elderly. Therefore, it is crucial to pay attention to the needs of this segment of society. In this regard, the concept of an age-friendly city that provides a favorable urban environment for the elderly has entered the world’s scientific literature. Because one of the essential land utilization that the elderly have a lot of connection with is health-therapeutic use, the current research has been carried out to evaluate the current health-treatment situation of Songhor city in terms of its usefulness for the elderly. In the second step, the most important drivers influencing the location of these uses have been identified from the perspective of related experts. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of research method. The required data has been collected using library-documentary studies, field surveys, and the distribution of questionnaires from related experts. According to the study’s findings, more than 60% of treatment facilities in Songhor city are inaccessible to the elderly. This difficulty varies by therapeutic use; in some cases, it is less difficult than the average, while in others, it is more difficult. In addition, three factors–investment cost (V3), rivalry (V10), and population density (V8)–have been identified as the age-friendly city’s main drivers out of a total of 18 main variables. The study’s findings indicate that the global population is aging, and urban managers and officials should design urban environments following the requirements of the projected population by putting forth medium- and long-term plans.

Our research aims to support decision-making regarding the financing of healthcare projects by structural funds with policies targeting reduction of the development gap among different regions and countries of the European Union as well as the achievement of economic and social cohesion. A fuzzy decision support model for the evaluation and selection of healthcare projects should rank the project applications for the selected region, accounting for the investor's wishes in the form of a regional coefficient in order to reduce the development gap between regions. On the one hand, our proposed model evaluates project applications based on selected criteria, which may be structured, weakly structured, or unstructured. On the other hand, it also incorporates information on the level of healthcare development in the region. The obtained ranking increases the degree of validity of the decision regarding the selection of projects for financing by investors, considering the level of development of the region where the project will be implemented. At the expense of European Union (EU) structural funds, a village, city, region, or state can receive funds for modernization and development of the healthcare sector and all related processes. To minimize risks, it is necessary to implement adequate support systems for decision-making in the assessment of project applications, as well as regional policy in the region where the project will be implemented. The primary goal of this study was to develop a complex fuzzy decision support model for the evaluation and selection of projects in the field of healthcare with the aim of reducing the development gap between regions. Based on the above description, we formed the following scientific hypothesis for this research: if the project selected for financing can successfully achieve its stated goals and increase the level of development of its region, it should be evaluated positively. This evaluation can be obtained using a complex fuzzy model constructed to account for the region's level of development in terms of the availability and quality of healthcare services in the region where the project will be implemented.

The COVID-19 crisis presents a unique opportunity to re-examine urban planning across various contexts. Given the high population density and concentrated built environment of large Chinese cities like Wuhan, residents of these cities are particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. It is, therefore, urgent to explore healthoriented urban planning strategies for such cities. This study examines Wuhan's urban planning regime, covering the planning system, method, and process of planning-making, to identify the gaps that need to be addressed to build a healthy city. To achieve this, we used participatory observations, semi-structured interviews, and surveys of typical sites. Our findings reveal, first, urban planning and public health are not well integrated in Wuhan's planning process. Second, market-oriented planning has resulted in high density in the central areas of the city, with inadequate provision of medical services to meet residents' needs. Third, traditional planning that solely considers facilities layout has contributed to the city's vulnerability to health-related issues, including uneven spatial distribution of essential amenities, deprivation of disadvantaged neighbourhoods or social groups, and litt le consideration for everyday needs. Finally, poor plan-making characterized by segregated intersectoral actions, limited public participation, and absence of feedback mechanisms, impedes the creation of a healthy Wuhan. To address these issues, we recommend the spatial strategies of decentralization and small-scale redevelopment and emphasize the need for people-centred planning. Overall, this study highlights the urgent need for health-oriented urban planning in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. The case of Wuhan illustrates the critical role that planning plays in shaping the resilience of cities to public health emergencies. Our study contributes to the growing body of research on urban planning and public health, providing valuable insights for policymakers, planners, and researchers to build healthier and more resilient cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health and health equity are strongly influenced by the design and planning of the neighbourhoods where people live, work, and recreate. This article looks at one aspect of neighbourhood liveability, housing. A healthy liveable neighbourhood is one with a housing stock that accommodates the evolving diversity of residents, reduces energy requirements, adds to the safety and amenity of the public realm, and provides equitable access to health enhancing employment, goods, destinations, and services. This research undertakes a policy analysis of two pivotal documents in South Australia's strategic planning system regarding their ability to enable a transition of established suburbs to a healthier more liveable form and function. The first document is the Thirty-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide, released in 2017, which is the strategic plan outlining the State Government's policies for urban development. The second is the Planning and Design Code, released in 2021, which regulates day to day residential development and redevelopment. The analysis showed that these documents and therefore the South Australian strategic planning system are currently overlooking opportunities to transition of existing neighbourhoods towards liveability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws out key implications for urban designers from the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly the relation between urban design and health. The entire world is facing the same acute health emergency of Covid-19 which is already impacting half of the global population, and as the majority of the world now inhabits urban settings, urban dwellers are the most affected. Urban Design already plays an important role in determining the health of urban populations but this relationship is often unclear, undervalued or ignored. The field of medicine is expanding to include all professionals who have an impact on the health of others, and this expanded field includes the urban design profession. After Covid-19, urban design ought to become a form of spatial medicine, whereby the design of built environments positively contributes and facilitates human and planetary health and wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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One of the most important goals of urban management is to provide comfort and well-being for all citizens. According to the population trend of the world, a massive segment of the future population will be the elderly. Therefore, it is crucial to pay attention to the needs of this segment of society. In this regard, the concept of an age-friendly city that provides a favorable urban environment for the elderly has entered the world's scientific literature. Because one of the essential land utilization that the elderly have a lot of connection with is health-therapeutic use, the current research has been carried out to evaluate the current health-treatment situation of Songhor city in terms of its usefulness for the elderly. In the second step, the most important drivers influencing the location of these uses have been identified from the perspective of related experts. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of research method. The required data has been collected using library-documentary studies, field surveys, and the distribution of questionnaires from related experts. According to the study's findings, more than 60% of treatment facilities in Songhor city are inaccessible to the elderly. This difficulty varies by therapeutic use; in some cases, it is less difficult than the average, while in others, it is more difficult. In addition, three factors-investment cost (V3), rivalry (V10), and population density (V8)-have been identified as the age-friendly city's main drivers out of a total of 18 main variables. The study's findings indicate that the global population is aging, and urban managers and officials should design urban environments following the requirements of the projected population by putting forth medium- and long-term plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This morphological study identifies and measures recent nationwide trends in American street network design. Historically, orthogonal street grids provided the interconnectivity and density that researchers identify as important factors for reducing vehicular travel and emissions and increasing road safety and physical activity. During the 20th century, griddedness declined in planning practice alongside declines in urban form compactness, density, and connectivity as urbanization sprawled around automobile dependence. But less is known about comprehensive empirical trends across US neighborhoods, especially in recent years. This study uses public and open data to examine tract-level street networks across the entire US. It develops theoretical and measurement frameworks for a quality of street networks defined here as griddedness. It measures how griddedness, orientation order, straightness, 4-way intersections, and intersection density declined from 1940 through the 1990s while dead-ends and block lengths increased. However, since 2000, these trends have rebounded, shifting back toward historical design patterns. Yet, despite this rebound, when controlling for topography and built environment factors all decades post-1939 are associated with lower griddedness than pre-1940. Higher griddedness is associated with less car ownership—which itself has a well-established relationship with vehicle kilometers traveled and greenhouse gas emissions—while controlling for density, home and household size, income, jobs proximity, street network grain, and local topography. Interconnected grid-like street networks offer practitioners an important tool for curbing car dependence and emissions. Once established, street patterns determine urban spatial structure for centuries, so proactive planning is essential.