Urban planning and urban health: attempts at innovation in line with local planning tools

A recent WHO-UN-Habitat document states that urban planning is crucial for better public health in cities and that health is input for and an outcome of planning. These statements regard the mission of urban planning: designing cities to promote a healthy lifestyle and guarantee adequate standards of living and work, economic growth, social development, equity, environmental sustainability and connectivity. In recent decades, health has rarely been promoted directly in urban planning; however, the pandemic has ignited new interest in urban planning as an enabler of urban health, for an approach that may trigger useful innovative elements to better respond to people’s needs, improve the quality of life and ensure social equity. This path is still very uncertain. Some people state the need to regulate within urban planning codes, while some warn against restricting local administrations and their capacity to identify unconventional means of innovation, supporting the opportunity to follow a more operational, pragmatic path. This article reflects on current experiments in Europe that propose a ‘soft’ path to combine health issues and urban planning, innovating with local urban plans within current regulatory grids and relying on greater knowledge and accountability on behalf of designers, administrators, doctors and citizens.