Taylor, J and Howden-Chapman, P (2021) The significance of urban systems on sustainability and public health. Buildings & Cities, 2(1), pp. 874-887. ISSN 2632-6655
Abstract
Urban areas are highly complex systems, with interconnections between their political, economic, social, natural and built environments components, and each with its own unique priorities and contexts. They are also facing key global and local sustainability challenges such as a changing climate, air pollution and waste, all of which also present risks for population health. Improving urban sustainability can provide co-benefits for population health; however, the effectiveness—or unintended consequences—of policies or actions can depend on the behaviours and relationships in the wider urban system. The papers published in this special issue explore issues related to urban sustainability and health, including urban design and environmental justice, scale, and informal settlements. The papers also describe issues at the interface of different system components, demonstrating the systemic challenges that can act to enhance or prevent sustainable change. The complexity of urban environments presents challenges for research and policy, both of which can be reductive, and conducted independent from other disciplines or government departments. However, by moving from this siloed approach towards a broader systemic understanding, there are opportunities to develop and implement evidence-based solutions that have the potential to lead to significant improvements in sustainability and health.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | built environment; cities; health; policy; sustainability; systems thinking; urban design |
| Index terms: | evidence, built environment, effectiveness, population, urban area, informal settlement, urban environment, complexity, systems thinking, urban design, unintended consequence, sustainability challenge, air pollution, justice, complex system, public health |
| Subjects: | evaluation and assessment methods, risk assessment, environmental issues, climate science, urban sustainability, legal systems, analytical methods, urban form and morphology, performance management, urban design, demography, housing and residential development, infrastructure and transport systems, environmental health, systems engineering |
| Topics: | Risk Management, Sustainability, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Urban Studies, Legal Issues, Design Practice, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here