Planning

Planning is the process by which built environments are shaped and managed. Planners aim to balance social, economic and environmental needs. Health was once a key concern for planning, but in recent decades in the UK has been somewhat sidelined. However, there is an increasing awareness that planners need to re-engages with issues of health and in terms of obesity a suggestion that there is enough evidence to implicate the built environment in the pandemic [1].

At the heart of the debate is the way in which towns and cities have been designed and developed in the recent past. Traditional towns and cities were designed around walking distances. Residential neighbourhoods contained local shops, schools and services and were often built near to employment opportunities. Accessing these on foot (or later bicycle) - referred to as ‘active travel’ was part of everyday life.

During much of the 20th century planning sought to divide out residential from commercial and industrial areas, while large institutions like schools and hospitals consolidated to single, often peripheral, sites. The development of out-of town or edge-of-town shopping malls and centres further fragmented the urban fabric. These new urban forms reduced opportunities for active travel and increased reliance on the private car [2], further car dominated environments have been associated with obesity [3, 4]. See also design (link here)

Contemporary planning seeks to restore more mixed used-use areas (since for example, threats from work-place pollution to homes, is largely a thing of the past). However, there are now huge tracts of urban land in mono-cultural use; investment and development companies have become used to the certainties of single land use (and may, therefore, be resistant to change); and only a small percentage of new building stock is added to the built fabric each year.

It is a matter of the upmost urgency, therefore, that planners engage with these issues address the deficiencies of contemporary development and explore possible way to retrofit the existing built environment to create healthier more sustainable places to live.

References

  1. Foresight. Tackling Obesities: Future Choices – Project report. London: Government Office for Science; 2007.
  2. Frank LD, Engelke PO, Schmid TL. Health and Community Design: the impact of the built environment and physical activity. Washington: Island Press. 2003.
  3. Frank LD, Andresen MA, Schmid TL. Obesity relationships with community design, physical activity, and time spent in cars. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2004 2004/8;27(2):87-96.
  4. Joshu CE, Boehmer TK, Brownson RC, Ewing R. Personal neighbourhood and urban factors associted with obesity in the United States. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 2008;62:202-8.

Further Reading

Townshend, T.G. (2010) What role can urban planning and transportation policy play in the prevention of obesity? in Crawford et al Obesity epidemiology: from aetiology to public health’ Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Links

Building Health campaign by National Hearth Forum; Living Streets and Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. http://www.heartforum.org.uk/downloads/BuildingHealth_Main.pdf

World Health Orgainisation (WHO) Healthy Cities campaign.
http://www.euro.who.int/healthy-cities

Education Network for Healthier Settlements http://www.bne.uwe.ac.uk/who/enhs/default.asp