Building healthy and liveable cities is among one of the steps published under the World Health Organization (WHO) Manifesto for a healthy recovery from Covid-19.
As of now, over half of the world’s population is living in cities and cities are major contributors to climate change.
By 2050, it is predicted that 2.5 billion people will be living in urban areas.
According to UN Habitat, cities around the globe consume 78 per cent of the world’s energy and are responsible for over 60 percent of both economic activity and greenhouse gas emissions.
However, cities also account for less than two per cent of the Earth’s surface.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Manifesto recommend that in building healthy and liveable cities it should include city design, social inclusiveness and cohesion, clean air, access to basic facilities and housing
In building healthy and liveable cities, WHO recommended several actionable that encompassed several aspects; city design, social inclusiveness and cohesion, clean air, access to basic facilities and housing.
To build healthy and liveable cities, the city design needs to integrate health into urban planning policies to deliver highly connected, mixed use and compact neighbourhoods that are economically and socially viable.
This is to promote active living, sustainable mobility, energy efficiency, healthy diets and access to essential services.
In addition to this, the urban planning policies should also incorporate active and sustainable mobility as the preferred mode of travel.
This can be done by improving walking and cycling infrastructure for people of all ages and abilities and create citywide access for safer, walking, biking, nature, public spaces and public transport.
This way, it supports mobility, physical activity, recreation, access to services and social interactions and reduce the use of energy and resources.
Other things that can be incorporated into healthy and liveable city design is by improving access to good-quality public and green open spaces that are resilient to climate change and natural disaster for everyone including accessible and safe recreational spaces for children and young people.
In building healthy and liveable cities, the urban planning policies should also incorporate active and sustainable mobility as the preferred mode of travel
In creating healthy and liveable cities, it should also consider social inclusiveness and cohesion through a variety in spatial planning such as in land parcel size, forms of land tenure, and size of housing.
In this aspect, it is important to develop a common vision for social cohesion and health equity that includes the right for people to access, use and transform urban environments.
A healthy and liveable city must also ensure clean air through the implementation of interventions in polluting sectors.
This may include sectors such as transport and industry and through access to cleaner fuels and technologies for cooking, heating and lighting, adequate housing equipment and infrastructure development.
Apart from that, a healthy and liveable city must also have access to basic facilities including adequate water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management and food.
In providing housing development, more should be done to ensure access to affordable housing that is not crowded, where indoor temperatures and thermal insulation are adequate, that is equipped with safety devices, and where disease vectors are controlled.
