Urban planning refers to the design, regulation, and planning of urban spaces. For it to have a positive societal impact, it has to ensure a consistently high quality of life for its current residents, without compromising the quality of life of future residents. Planners must focus, for example, in issues like access to transport, housing, green spaces, leisure, food and culture.
Any urban planning with positive societal impact also must be environmentally sustainable. The design of cities must be made in ways that reduce environmental degradation and resource depletion. It could also focus on public transportation over personal vehicles or on renewable energy from solar and wind farms.
Why is urban planning important?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) affirms that the environment where we live determines almost 25% of our health status. In urban settings, adults living and children growing up are increasingly exposed to high levels of air and noise pollution and tend to engage in less physical activity and have less contact with nature. This will become much more relevant if we consider that, regarding current projections, within the next 15 to 20 years 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas.
The societal impacts of urban planning cover different areas that we will try to explain here.
Air quality and physical activity. Planning the use of urban space, for example, for road traffic has a direct impact on aspects that determine the health of the population, and especially that of vulnerable groups like children and older adults. Cities must be greener, with less traffic, promote more active modes of transport, and reduce noise and pollution levels.
Climate change. This issue is one of the main challenges that cities face. We can see that clearly in the urban heat island effect, a phenomenon caused by heat accumulation due to the building materials that predominate in urban landscapes, which is expected to become more acute and lead to an increase in the negative health effects caused by high temperatures, including impaired cognitive development and premature death. A focus on sustainability is needed to ensure that, for example, cities grow in a way that does not increase carbon emissions. Without sustainable urban planning, cities can grow in a way that does not benefit the environment or the people living in it.
Education and social cohesion. Public areas can be natural and peaceful spaces designed to be restorative and reduce stress as well as to promote physical activity and play and to foster experimentation, creativity and critical skills in a sustainable way. It’s really important to increase social interaction and stimulate play among children and even adults.
Citizen participation for better results with urban planning
An important concept comes into play regarding urban planning: citizen participation. Either through neighborhood movements, ecologists, civic platforms, user associations, it indicates a degree of social concern important for the effectiveness of projects, not only from a technical point of view, but also ethical. In new interventions, social demands for making livelier, healthier cities are a fundamental claim. For this, to integrate policies, a holistic vision and interdisciplinary work in the management of urban sustainability are required.
Different projects will affect people in different ways. One community may benefit from improved social networks, while others may gain value through green spaces or employment opportunities. Given how specific the impacts of a development can be on a place and its people, project teams that aim to deliver social value must focus on citizen participation with tools like co-creation or co-design.
