Which open spaces and combinations of green-blue infrastructure provide optimum wellbeing benefits? How we do ensure these benefits are available to all? Can we reduce health and well-being inequalities through sensible design? The volume focuses on specific studies in urban design, environmental psychology and public health combining ‘green’ spaces with ‘green-blue’ infrastructures, active mobility and facilities, showing a series of criteria necessary to ensure that ‘green-blue’ space can work optimally. The book is divided in two parts: Part one goes on to demonstrate how design along waterfronts can contribute to support the well-being of people and encourage urban quality. Part two identifies design concepts for health and well-being in urban spaces.

Human beings have always been affected by their surroundings. There are various health benefits linked to being able to access to nature; including increased physical activity, stress recovery, and the stimulation of child cognitive development. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health provides a broad and inclusive picture of the relationship between our own health and the natural environment. All aspects of this unique relationship are covered, ranging from disease prevention through physical activity in green spaces to innovative ecosystem services, such as climate change adaptation by urban trees. Potential hazardous consequences are also discussed including natural disasters, vector-borne pathogens, and allergies. This book analyses the complexity of our human interaction with nature and includes sections for example epigenetics, stress physiology, and impact assessments. These topics are all interconnected and fundamental for reaching a full understanding of the role of nature in public health and wellbeing. Much of the recent literature on environmental health has primarily described potential threats from our natural surroundings. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health instead focuses on how nature can positively impact our health and wellbeing, and how much we risk losing by destroying it. The all-inclusive approach provides a comprehensive and complete coverage of the role of nature in public health, making this textbook invaluable reading for health professionals, students, and researchers within public health, environmental health, and complementary medicine.

In this book Gayle Souter-Brown explores the social, economic and environmental benefits of developing greenspace for health and well-being. She examines the evidence behind the positive effects of designed landscapes, and explains effective methods and approaches which can be put into practice by those seeking to reduce costs and add value through outdoor spaces. Using principles from sensory, therapeutic and healing gardens, Souter-Brown focuses on landscape’s ability to affect health, education and economic outcomes. Already valued within healthcare environments, these design guidelines for public and private spaces extend the benefits throughout our towns and cities. Covering design for school grounds to public parks, public housing to gardens for stressed executives, this richly illustrated text builds the case to justify inclusion of a designed outdoor area in project budgets. With case studies from the US, UK, Africa, Asia, Australasia and Europe, it is an international, inspirational and valuable tool for those interested in landscapes that provide real benefits to their users.

Urban planning is deeply implicated in both the planetary crisis of climate change and the personal crises of unhealthy lifestyles. Worldwide health issues such as obesity, mental illness, growing health inequalities and climate vulnerability cannot be solved solely by medicines but also by tackling the social, economic and environmental determinants. In a time when unhealthy and unsustainable conditions are being built into the physical fabric of cities, a new awareness and strategy is urgently needed to putting health and well-being at the heart of planning. The Routledge Handbook of Planning for Health and Well-being authoritatively and comprehensively integrates health into planning, strengthening the hands of those who argue and plan for healthy environments. With contributions from international leaders in the field, the Handbook of Planning for Health and Well-being provides context, philosophy, research, processes, and tools of experienced practitioners through case studies from four continents.

The book aims to face the challenge of post-COVID-19 dynamics toward green and digital transition, between metropolitan and return to villages’ perspectives. It presents a multi-disciplinary scientific debate on the new frontiers of strategic and spatial planning, economic programs and decision support tools, within the urban–rural areas networks and the metropolitan cities. The book focuses on six topics: inner and marginalized areas local development to re-balance territorial inequalities; knowledge and innovation ecosystem for urban regeneration and resilience; metropolitan cities and territorial dynamics; rules, governance, economy, society; green buildings, post-carbon city and ecosystem services; infrastructures and spatial information systems; cultural heritage: conservation, enhancement and management. In addition, the book hosts a Special Section: Rhegion United Nations 2020-2030. The book will benefit all researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in the issues applied to metropolitan cities and marginal areas.

This volume demonstrates how urban climate science can provide valuable information for planning healthy cities. The book illustrates the idea of "Science in Time, Science in Place" by providing worldwide case-based urban climatic planning applications for a variety of regions and countries, utilizing relevant climatic-spatial planning experiences to address local climatic and environmental health issues. Comprised of three major sections entitled "The Rise of Mega-cities and the Concept of Climate Resilience and Healthy Living," "Urban Climate Science in Action," and "Future Challenges and the Way Forward," the book argues for the recognition of climate as a key element of healthy cities. Topics covered include: urban resilience in a climate context, climate responsive planning and urban climate interventions to achieve healthy cities, climate extremes, public health impact, urban climate-related health risk information, urban design and planning, and governance and management of sustainable urban development. The book will appeal to an international audience of practicing planners and designers, public health and built environment professionals, social scientists, researchers in epidemiology, climatology and biometeorology, and international to city scale policy makers. Chapter “Manchester: The Role of Urban Domestic Gardens in Climate Adaptation and Resilience” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The world is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate. It is estimated that in the near future urban landscapes for another ca. 2.7 billion people will be built on planet Earth, approximately converting land equivalent to the size of South Africa. Such land conversion, coupled with citizen densification, increasing in-equalities, shifting diets, and emerging technologies, challenge human well-being and pose ever-increasing demand for resources generated by the Biosphere. This Research Topic concentrates on the various ways urbanization can promote individual well-being (mental, physical, and social health) as well as ecological health (a healthy Biosphere). What kind of affordances for human health promotion can urbanization include? What kinds of affordances for a psychological connection with nature can urbanization include? What kinds of nudges for pro-environmental behavior and consumption (decreasing detrimental consumption behaviors) can be actively designed in urban settings? The Research Topic at hand uses a transactional approach, where an affordance can be understood as a non-deterministic in-situ precondition for a human activity, enabled by relations between abilities of an individual with features of an environment. We encourage a broad definition of the concept of affordances, where ‘the environment’ must not be restricted to the material biophysical environment alone, but also could be combined with social immaterial features. We see that the transactional approach of this Research Topic posits that meaning arises in relations between humans and their environment, that it will be equally applicable to natural and designed environments, and that it doesn’t regard dichotomies like city-contra-nature or social-contra-ecological. Hence, this Research Topic is interested in if the transactional approach can be used as a conceptual tool, not only for promotion of mental, physical, and social health in cities, but simultaneously for unraveling relations at the micro scale in cities which can be used for solutions that also promote a healthy Biosphere.

This volume is dealing with climate change and the new trends to reduce urban risks in historic cities. How we cope with urban changes in historic cities? To respond significantly to the current scenarios, sustainable and resilient planning and design must lead positively to these changes. At the same time, protection, and revitalization of ′Urban Heritage′ of outstanding value should be emphasized on properly climate change adaptation methods. To link Urban Greening with Urban Design and to help maximize not only the aesthetic of the Historic City but also the functionality and quality of an urban space, Urban Green Infrastructure must be considered to support both long-term and short-term sustainability and environmental resilience goals as well.

​This book presents the outcomes of the symposium “NEW METROPOLITAN PERSPECTIVES,” held at Mediterranea University, Reggio Calabria, Italy on May 26–28, 2020. Addressing the challenge of Knowledge Dynamics and Innovation-driven Policies Towards Urban and Regional Transition, the book presents a multi-disciplinary debate on the new frontiers of strategic and spatial planning, economic programs and decision support tools in connection with urban–rural area networks and metropolitan centers. The respective papers focus on six major tracks: Innovation dynamics, smart cities and ICT; Urban regeneration, community-led practices and PPP; Local development, inland and urban areas in territorial cohesion strategies; Mobility, accessibility and infrastructures; Heritage, landscape and identity;and Risk management,environment and energy. The book also includes a Special Section on Rhegion United Nations 2020-2030. Given its scope, the book will benefit all researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in issues concerning metropolitan and marginal areas.