Health Promotion and Urban Sustainability: A Perspective on Duality

Abstract

The correlation between human health and sustainability/climate change is the fruit of more than twenty years of research activities in Europe. Health creates the conditions for sustainability while simultaneously being conditioned by it, just as sustainability, intended as environmental, economic, and social sustainability, creates and is conditioned by human health. The two concepts, in theory as well as in practice, cannot be separated, but should be understood as interdependent. This means that strategies oriented towards sustainable development should be correlated with strategies to promote health and vice versa. In this sense, experiences within Europe (London, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Malmö, Rotterdam, and Turin, to name a few) and the rest of the world (Boston, Jakarta, Medellin, New Orleans, New York) constitute an interesting record for extrapolation with respect to some keywords running in the direction of health and quality of life in cities: environmental and social safety, public spaces and inclusive cities, and meaningful design references, on both large and small scales.