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The Future of the Inland Empire
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| What Do Healthy Cities Have in Common? |
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| A recent scoping study published in the Journal of Urban Health was titled “How to Achieve a Healthy City.” The piece considered the 11 characteristics of healthy cities suggested by the World Health Organization in 1986 when it created the Healthy Cities Program, and the authors reviewed ten cities that illustrate each characteristic. The key takeaway is that while each of the characteristics is critical on its own, none of them actually stand alone, and are instead affected by the complexity that characterizes urban development, economic planning, and government in our communities. The piece chose one city to exemplify each of the 11 characteristics (minus the last, which was noted to be the cumulative effect of having achieved the previous ten). Taken together, the piece provides interesting insight on the various aspects of city collaboration and highlights how critical widespread interaction and cooperation really are. Some key examples from this piece include: - Characteristic 1: A clean, safe, high quality physical environment (including housing quality): Freiburg, Germany. The authors point to two planned neighborhoods offering a variety of housing options and flexibility in terms of floor plans and use cases. Public amenities were designed to accommodate evolving requirements for housing and community needs, and the neighborhoods included housing, shopping, and recreation as well as easy access to paths and trails for commuting. The neighborhoods employed more than 600 residents, and also offer easy access to transportation to greater Freiburg.
- Characteristic 3: A strong, mutually supportive and non-exploitative community: In Singapore, the public housing authority constructed over one million high-rise housing units, providing housing for approximately 90% of the population. A social mix in housing estates is planned, particularly among the three major ethnic groups, acting to randomly distribute these groups and ensure an ethnic mix in every housing block and communication and cooperation in places like the community gardens.
- Characteristic 10: An optimum level of appropriate public health and sick care services accessible to all: In Washington DC, a “shortage designation” is applied to prioritize allocation of federal and local resources to areas or groups found to have a shortage of providers or facing economic, cultural, or linguistic barriers to receiving healthcare.
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| Learning by Example: Copenhagen as a Case Study |
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| Copenhagen, Denmark was one of the first 12 cities to join the WHO’s Healthy Cities Initiative after it was born in 1986. An article from The Guardian holds up the Danish city as one we might consider as we work together to build healthy communities in our own cities in the Inland Empire. Though it will sound shocking to anyone living in most US cities, a surprising 62% of people living in Copenhagen ride bicycles to work, no matter the weather. This is not because they want to be healthier, according to the public health official quoted, but because it’s the easiest way to get around. The city streets were built for bikes, not cars. Another lesson Copenhagen may offer other Western cities is a reduced workweek (37 hours) and subsidized child care for most working mothers, as well as government subsidized health care. Of course, this is possible because Denmark, like other Scandinavian countries, is a place where citizens may pay up to 60% of their income in tax. But those taxes, it seems, are successfully converted into health and happiness for many (Denmark is consistently ranked one of the happiest places to live.) Copenhagen and the IE have some things in common: - Mental health struggles – While healthcare in Denmark is free, mental health is partially paid for by citizens, which means many do not access it as they should. The city has launched “stress clinics” to help combat the issue, and for those who have participated in the free nine-week clinics, symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress have dropped by 30%.
- Housing prices on the rise – As more people choose to retire in the city, the elderly population is growing and the demand for multi-generational housing is also growing, leading to escalating housing costs.
- Geographic and economic disparity – Though much of Copenhagen benefits from current policies, like any city, there are areas less supported by healthy initiatives, where citizens smoke and drink more than in other places, and have less access to healthcare and education. “Those most in need,” the mayor interviewed in the piece notes, “are the hardest to reach.”
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