Selected Topics - Urbanisation

• CITYFUTURES
  CITYFUTURES is the Centre for Research on Australian Cities in the Faculty of Built Environment at UNSW. CityFutures is dedicated to developing a better understanding of our cities, their people, the policies that manage their growth the issues they face, and the impacts they make on our environment and economy.

Events

• School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW

Global policies and related documents

• The Philippine Urban Forum
  The Philippine Urban Forum is a mechanism for continuing consultation and convergence among stakeholders in shelter and urban governance. It serves as a venue for information sharing, discussion and coordination among national government agencies, legislature, civil society organisations, private sector groups and international donor community that are involved in shelter and urban governance.

Reports, guidelines and projects

• A Billion Voices: Listening and Responding to the Health Needs of Slum Dwellers and Informal Settlers
  This analytical and strategic paper was prepared for the Knowledge Network on Urban Settings of the World Health Organisation's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. It takes a close look at urban slums, poverty and ill health in the 21st Century; reviews evidence and opportunities for synergy and presents a positioning for action.
• Cities and public health crises
  "The International Health Regulations require countries to strengthen their capacity for surveillance of and response to disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies both at national level and at state or city level too. That is why the World Health Organization (WHO), with the support of Lyonbiopôle, jointly organized an international technical consultation on “Cities and Public Health Crises” in Lyon, France, on 29-30 October 2008. Some 70 health specialists and others experienced in responding to disease outbreaks in cities took part… Crisis management in a city must be coordinated outside between the municipal and national or state authorities and inside between the services that provide health care and those that provide emergency response, as well as with public amenities such as transport services, airport and port authorities, tourism, industry, education, commerce, and the media. A framework for collaboration between national and local authorities in times of crisis must be developed in advance to avoid confusion… In today’s largely urban and interconnected world, infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies pose a real threat to large cities but that with a good understanding of the specific issues posed by urban settings, and appropriate preparation from municipal and national stakeholders, that threat can be mitigated." [Report of the international consultation, 29-30 October 2008, Lyon, France (World Health Organization 2009)]
• Development Malawi: Rapid Urbanisation looks Irreversible
  Frank Phiri, Inter Press Service News Agency, 2004 - an article examining the economic and health impacts of urbanisation in Malawi
• Healthy Urban Planning: Recommendations from the NSW HIA project, 2006
  This 2007 report by P. Harris, E. Harris, B. Harris-Roxas and L. Kemp examines several focus areas concerned with health planning and service provision in urban NSW, Australia, and provides recommendations and rationales for each.
• Hidden cities: unmasking and overcoming health inequities in urban settings
  "The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) joint global report, Hidden cities: unmasking and overcoming health inequities in urban settings, exposes the extent to which certain city dwellers suffer disproportionately from a wide range of diseases and health problems. This report provides information and tools to help governments and local leaders reduce health inequities in their cities. The objective of the report is not to compare rural and urban health inequities. Urban health inequities need to be addressed specifically for they are different in their magnitude and in their distribution." [WHO/UN-HABITAT report – November 2010]
• Metropolis International
  "The International Metropolis Project is a set of co-ordinated activities carried out by a membership of research, policy and non-governmental organizations who share a vision of strengthened migration policy by means of applied academic research."
• Neighbourhood identity – People, time and place
  "This study looks at the ways in which neighbourhood identity is formed and considers any implications this may have for policies that seek to improve and enhance neighbourhoods. Through an examination of three neighbourhoods in Stirling, Scotland, the study explores what it means to people to 'come from' each of these areas as a way of understanding issues of belonging and attachment to particular places. The areas – Raploch, Riverside and Randolph Road – were chosen due to their differing socio-economic profiles and contrasting identities. The authors consider why regeneration policies often fail in their objectives and why the reputations of housing estates often display a remarkable longevity and resilience to change. They focus on how such reputations are established and understood by those in and outside particular areas and what implications this has for the identities of neighbourhoods and the people who live in them."
• Our cities, our health, our future
  This 2008 KNUS (Knowledge Network on Urban Settings) report summarizes the findings concerning structural and intermediate social determinants of health that are of importance in the urban setting. The framework of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) guided the work. While unmasking the health inequities and inequalities in urban settings, it was decided at an early stage to make a strategic focus on slums and informal settlements where one billion people live in deplorable conditions. This number may double in coming decades unless appropriate policies for economic, social and health equity are developed and implemented. An example of the health inequalities in these circumstances is the strong gradient in infant and child mortality rates within Nairobi, Kenya, with rates in the slums more than three times higher than the city average and possibly ten or more times higher than in the richer parts of the city. Other data from Africa show that these mortality rates among the urban poor are, on average, almost as high as the rates among the rural poor, while among the richer urban groups the rates are the lowest.
• Our cities, our health, our future: Acting on social determinants for health equity in urban settings
  Following the conceptual framework devised by Vlahov et al in 2006 and 2007, the core concept used in this report prepared by the WHO Centre for Health Development, Kobe, Japan in 2007 is that “the social and physical environments that define the urban context are shaped by multiple factors and multiple players at multiple levels. Global trends, national and local governments, civil society, markets and the private sector shape the context in which local factors operate. Governance interventions in the urban setting must consider national and municipal determinants and should strive to influence both the urban living and working environments as well as intermediary processes that include social process and health knowledge. The framework assumes that the urban environment in its broadest sense (physical, social, economic, and political) affects all strata of residents, either directly or indirectly. It should be pointed out that interventions can also influence the key global, national and municipal drivers. The health sector has an important role to play, for instance via the ‘healthy cities’ approach…”
• Pandemic influenza as 21st century urban public health crisis
  The percentage of the world’s population living in urban areas will increase from 50% in 2008 to 70% (4.9 billion) in 2025. Crowded urban areas in developing and industrialized countries are uniquely vulnerable to public health crises and face daunting challenges in surveillance, response, and public communication. The revised International Health Regulations require all countries to have core surveillance and response capacity by 2012. Innovative approaches are needed because traditional local-level strategies may not be easily scalable upward to meet the needs of huge, densely populated cities, especially in developing countries. The responses of Mexico City and New York City to the initial appearance of influenza A pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus during spring 2009 illustrate some of the new challenges and creative response strategies that will increasingly be needed in cities worldwide. [author abstract] [Emerging Infectious Diseases, Dec 2009]
• Promoting Public Health through Smart Growth: Building healthier communities through transportation and land use policies and practices
  This report explains how our built environment shapes our transportation choices, and in turn, human health. It reviews the existing research for a range of transportation-related health impacts on seven public health outcomes: Physical Activity and Obesity, Air Quality, Traffic Safety, Noise, Water Quality, Mental Health and Social Capital.
• Reported Health and Health-influencing Behaviors Among Urban American Indians and Alaska Natives: An Analysis of Data Collected by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
  On March 5th, 2008, the Urban Indian Health Institute releases their ground breaking report titled: Reported Health and Health-Influencing Behaviors Among Urban American Indians and Alaska Natives. The report was released at a Native Symposium titled, Through Native Eyes: Identity, Perception and Recognition. “…The report finds additional evidence that American Indians and Alaska Natives living in urban areas face major hurdles in reaching health status similar to their fellow Americans. Findings from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a national telephone survey conducted yearly and coordinated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), show America Indians and Alaska Natives living in selected urban areas were more likely to report difficulty accessing health care, had higher rates of risk behavior, and experienced worse health outcomes than the general population. Income differences were shown to play a role in explaining some of the health disparities, but differences in some reported health indicators were not income dependent….”
• State of the Evidence Review on Urban Health and Healthy Weights
  “…The relationship between urban environments and obesity has received little systematic attention. Our purpose was to review and synthesize the evidence on: a) structural and community level characteristics of urban environments that promote or inhibit the achievement of healthy weights; and b) the effectiveness of interventions to assist urban populations in achieving healthy weights. Research findings were categorized and tabulated within a framework that examines social determinants of health and multiple levels of the environment (i.e. community-level vs. structural). Four outcome areas were considered: obesity/healthy weights, food/diet/nutrition, physical activity and sedentary behaviour. The resulting analyses provide a high-level overview of the strengths of and gaps in the research on associations between urban environments and healthy weights. The report also identifies priorities for future policy-relevant research and presents the author suggestions for promising interventions that may help to reduce population obesity levels in urban places…”.
• Threats to Urban Health
  This article, by Carolyn Stephens addresses the growing trend towards urbanisation in the developing world and the impact this is having on the health of urban dwellers.
• Urban HEART: Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool
  "The impact of the urban setting on health and, in particular, inequity in health has been widely documented. Evidence shows that while, on average, public services, including health and health service provision, in urban areas may be better than in rural areas, these averages often mask wide disparities between more and less disadvantaged populations. One key factor is the exclusion of the marginalized and vulnerable in public health planning and response systems. Urban health is influenced by a dynamic interaction between global, national and subnational policies; within that wider context, city governments and local communities can play an instrumental role in closing the gap between the better off and the worse off. Regardless of the evidence, only a few countries have examined their inter- or intra-city health inequities, and few do so regularly. Information that shows the gaps between cities or within the same city is a crucial requirement to trigger appropriate local actions to promote health equity. Evidence should be comprehensive enough to provide hints on key health determinants, and concise enough to facilitate policy- making and prioritization of interventions. In order to facilitate the process of proactively addressing health inequities, WHO collaborated with 17 cities from 10 countries in 2008–2009 to develop and pilot-test a tool called the Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART). Urban HEART guides local policymakers and communities through a standardized procedure of gathering relevant evidence and planning efficiently for appropriate actions to tackle health inequities. This collective effort towards a common goal has galvanized both city governments and communities to recognize and take action on health inequities. It is envisaged that cities in varied contexts can locally adapt and institutionalize Urban HEART, while maintaining its core concepts and principles." [World Health Organization, The WHO Centre for Health Development, Kobe, 2010]
• Urban Sustainability in Latin America and the Caribbean
  "Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has the highest rate of urbanization in the developing world. The proportion of the region’s population living in cities almost doubled between 1950 (41%) and 2010 (80%). Likewise, economic activity in the region is significantly concentrated in its cities. Between 60% and 70% of the regional gross domestic product (GDP) is currently produced in urban areas. Despite this generation of wealth, two out of every three people in Latin American and Caribbean cities live in poverty. These circumstances, together with the growing importance of cities’ impact on the environment and the high vulnerability of Latin American and Caribbean cities to climate change, natural disasters, and financial limitations, create a need for reflection on the concepts of sustainability and urban development in LAC… This work presents a comprehensive analysis of urban sustainability in Latin America and the Caribbean. The document is composed of six sections, including this introduction. Providing the theoretical and empirical elements of the analysis, the following section briefly reviews the relationship between urbanization and economic development at the international and regional levels. The third section delineates the evolution of the concept of sustainability in the urban sphere in recent years. The fourth section discusses the principal problems that currently affect the sustainability of Latin American and Caribbean cities, and the fifth section provides the foundations of a methodological proposal for approaching the comprehensive study of the sustainability of Latin American and Caribbean cities, including their components, the interactions of those components, and the horizontal and vertical integration of the analysis process. The work culminates in some final reflections." [Inter-American Development Bank IADB/BID, 2011]
• Urban Violence and Insecurity: An Introductory Roadmap
  This paper addresses the following objectives: to define and systematically categorize the multiple forms of violence; to profile the measurement, trends and characteristics of urban violence; to identify interrelated causes, costs and consequences of the phenomenon; and to understand the different types of interventions to reduce violence at national, city and community level, focusing on the urban poor and excluded.
• Urbanisation in Asia: Lessons Learned and Innovative Responses
  This report, by Dean Forbes and Michael Lindfield presents the findings of a study on urbanisation and best practice in urban poverty alleviation invlolving case studies in India, Vietnam and the Philippines.
• Urbanisation's Aftermath
  This article focuses on the extent and effects of urbaisation in America and the world. It describes the use of satellite images to measure the growth of uban areas.
• Violence in the City: Understanding and Supporting Community Responses to Urban Violence
  "For millions of people around the world, violence, or the fear of violence, is a daily reality. Much of this violence concentrates in urban centers in the developing world… Some of the world’s highest homicide rates occur in countries that have not undergone wars but have violence epidemics in their urban areas. Concern over these experiences has made urban violence a central preoccupation of policymakers, planners, and development practitioners. This study emerged from a growing recognition that urban communities themselves are an integral part of understanding the causes and impacts of urban violence and for generating sustainable violence prevention initiatives… This study aims to understand how urban residents cope with violence, or the threat of it, in their everyday lives, to inform the design of policies and programs for violence prevention. The study is the first global study on urban violence undertaken by the World Bank and covers three regions… The work has been guided by five objectives: 1. Introduce the social dimensions of urban violence and review existing lessons for supporting community capacities to prevent violence. 2. Analyze from the community perspective the experience of violence in five urban areas [selected neighborhoods in Nairobi (Kenya), Johannesburg (South Africa), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Fortaleza (Brazil), and Dili (Timor-Leste) during 2008 and 2009.], including the different forms of violence found there, their prevalence, impacts on different groups, and communities’ perceptions of the driving factors behind the violence. 3. Provide insights into community responses to high levels of violence, including individual and collective help-seeking behavior, and reliance on different informal and formal institutions to deal with and prevent violence. 4. Drawing on these insights, provide orientations to policymakers, especially mayors and municipal authorities, to inform successful violence-prevention interventions. 5. Suggest ways that the World Bank could be more involved in addressing the social dimensions of violence. The report is aimed at two audiences. First, the study addresses policymakers in the field, primarily mayors or municipal government officials tasked with addressing urban violence. It also is aimed at World Bank country teams and Task Team Leaders who wish to understand the social dimensions of urban violence to guide operations to address them." [The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development /The World Bank, April 2011]
• World Urbanisation Prospects: The 2001 Revision
  This report from the United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division presents estimations and projections of population between urban and rural cities in the major areas, regions and countries of the world.

Educational resources

• DFID Urbanisation
  The UK's Department for International Development's (DFID) urbanisation website provides information on all research and development projects in the urban sector supported by DFID. The purpose of this website is to inform readers about current developments in the sector, and to focus on the work supported by DFID country programmes and research activities.
• Food Africa: Impact of Urbanisation of Food Systems
  This site is part of the FoodAfrica project which aims to Improve food systems in sub-Saharan Africa by responding effectively to a changing environment. Its objective is to review the current research and development activities that affect food systems in sub-Saharan Africa; Identify gaps in current food and health research strategies; Recommend future research strategies; and Improve the links between researchers, in particular young scientists, in Africa and Europe. This page particulary focuses on the implications of urbanisation for food systems.
• Urbanisation information
  This resource, provided by Macquarie University, Division of Environmental and Life Sciences, Australia, provides general information about the process of urbanisation. Topics include urbanisation trends, urban impacts; socio-cultural, socio-economic, environmental and regional and urban planning.

Organisations and Networks

UN and multinational

• Healthy Cities and Urban Governance
  WHO Europe's Healthy Cities provides national and local governments with an effective means of dealing with health related issues such as poverty and social exclusion, pollution and sustainable development, lifestyles and living conditions, care and social support, urban planning and transport, and the special needs of vulnerable groups.
• UN - Habitat
  The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all

Government

Non Government

• Asian MetaCentre for Population and Sustainable Development Analysis
  The Asian MetaCentre is a research programme that aims to develop research initiatives on themes pertaining to population, sustainable development and health such as population forecasting, international migration, changing family structures and the Asian family, population-development-environment-health interactions, fertility, intergenerational relations, ageing, human capital projections, urbanisation, environmental degradation and the consequences of these population dynamics on human well-being and health.
• The International Society of Urban Health
  "The International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) is an association of researchers, scholars, and professionals from various disciplines and areas of the world who study the health effects of urban environments and urbanization."
• Population Council
  The Population Council is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organisation that conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research. For more than 50 years, the Council has been evaluating and developing sustainable approaches to enhancing people's health and well-being in the following areas: Biomedicine; Gender and Family Dynamics; HIV/AIDS; Infants and Children; Quality of Care; Reproductive Health; Social Science; Strengthening Local Resources and Transitions to Adulthood.
• Urban Poverty and Environment Program
  The Urban Poverty & Environment Program (UPE) is part of Canada's International Development Research Centre. It funds research and activities in developing countries that apply integrated and participatory approaches to reducing environmental burdens on the urban poor and enhancing the use of natural resources for food, water and income security.

Academic Institutions with particular focus in this area

• Centre for Environment and Human Settlements (CEHS)
  "The Centre for Environment and Human Settlements (CEHS) is an international centre providing teaching and training, research and knowledge transfer services in the fields of planning, housing and environments for the rapidly urbanising world. This is targeted to a wide range of international, governmental, private sector, non-governmental and community organizations. It has a strong focus on policy issues, institutional development, civil society roles and good practices in regional and urban development, urban management, and housing in conditions of rapid urbanisation."
• Partnership for Urban Health Research
  The Partnership for Urban Health Research (PUHR) at Georgia State University represents a university-wide commitment focused on the amelioration of health disparities that confront urban communities. PUHR is an interdisciplinary urban health research program developed in partnership with the College of Health and Human Sciences, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the College of Law.
• Urban Health Institute
  The mission of the Urban Health Institute at Johns Hopkins University is to marshal the resources of the Johns Hopkins Institutions as well as other, external resources to improve the health and well-being of the residents of East Baltimore and Baltimore City [USA] and to promote evidence-based interventions to solve urban health problems nationwide.
• Urban Health Program
  The Urban Health Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago aims to improve the quality of health care services for medically underserved urban populations, especially those in Health Professions Shortage Areas of Illinois [USA], by expanding health professions education opportunities for underrepresented groups (African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Mainland Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans).

Journals, Newsletters, Forums

• Habitat-Debate
  Habitat Debate is a journal published by UN-HABITAT, The United Nations Human Settlements Programme. It covers the health related aspects of urbanisation and human habitats.

Bibliographies, Libraries

• HUD USER Database
  The HUD USER Database is a bibliographic database exclusively dedicated to housing and community development issues. It contains more than 10,000 full-abstract citations to research reports, articles, books, monographs, and data sources in housing policy, building technology, economic development, urban planning, and a host of other relevant fields.

Public health bookshops

• Public Health bookshop