Promoting Resilient and Healthy Cities for Everyone in an Urban Planning Context by Assessing Green Area Accessibility

Frontiers in Built Environment

Meta Berghauser Pont¹  Adam Feinberg²  Olivier Rostang³  Asa Gren⁴ 

[1] Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers Technical University, Gothenburg, Sweden;Danish Society for Nature Conservation, Copenhagen, Denmark;Kairos Future, Stockholm, Sweden;The Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden;

关键词: closing the health gap;    community resilience building;    equal cities;    green area accessibility;    healthy cities;    resilience in the built environment;    resilient cities;    sustainable urban planning;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fbuil.2021.797179

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Rapid economic development and population growth has led to urban densification and massive land use changes, putting pressure on both ecosystems, and people. In this context, public health issues have become crucial for cities to address to ensure they remain livable and healthy for everyone. Since the health challenges of cities tend to manifest themselves differently among different population groups—e.g., groups of higher socioeconomic status tend to be correlated with better health than groups of low socioeconomic status—closing the health gap has become a priority for creating healthy cities for everyone. More greenness close to where people live and better accessibility to green areas has been shown to be useful for improving human health and for tackling health inequalities. This paper aims at developing a method for supporting urban planners and policymakers on where to geographically prioritize investments in green infrastructure to contribute to closing the health gap and promote community resilience through improving public health. Using the City of Stockholm as a pilot, we apply a GIS analysis to identify vulnerable population groups in relation to geotagged empirical human health- and socio-economic data. By then assessing vulnerable populations in relation to population numbers and accessibility to urban green areas, an Urban Green Opportunity Map (UGOM) was created, identifying focus areas where investment in green infrastructure will contribute most to closing the health gap and building community resilience.

【 授权许可】

CC BY