IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/urbpla/v2y2017i3p45-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Cities and Healthy Cities: Are They the Same?

Author

Listed:
  • Kent E. Portney

    (Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy, The G.H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, USA)

  • Garett Thomas Sansom

    (Institute for Sustainable Communities, Texas A&M University, USA)

Abstract

There is robust literature examining the wide array of public policies and programs cities pursue in order to try to become more sustainable. Whether the focus of such programs is explicitly on improving the bio-physical environment, climate protection and adaptation, energy efficiency, land use regulation, or any of a number of other targets, such programs often carry with them an expectation that the programs will contribute to improve the health of populations. While there is significant attention to asserting that such a relationship exists, or ought to exist, there have been no efforts to explicitly and empirically link city policies to health outcomes. This paper tackles this issue head-on, investigating the extent to which cities in the US that have the most aggressive sustainability initiatives exhibit better health outcomes than cities with less aggressive sustainability initiatives. Using data from the largest cities in the US, this paper presents evidence concerning the strength of this relationship, discusses the foundations for the relationship, and provides a discussion of the implications for urban planning, sustainability policies and for improving the health of populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Kent E. Portney & Garett Thomas Sansom, 2017. "Sustainable Cities and Healthy Cities: Are They the Same?," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(3), pages 45-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v:2:y:2017:i:3:p:45-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/1018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lopez, R., 2004. "Urban sprawl and risk for being overweight or obese," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(9), pages 1574-1579.
    2. Hruby, A. & Manson, J.E. & Qi, L. & Malik, V.S. & Rimm, E.B. & Sun, Q. & Willett, W.C. & Hu, F.B., 2016. "Determinants and consequences of obesity," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 106(9), pages 1656-1662.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ji, Hyunjung & Shin, Su Hyun, 2021. "Health benefits of local government sustainability efforts: A social cognitive perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anura Amarasinghe & Gerard D'Souza & Cheryl Brown & Tatiana Borisova, 2006. "A Spatial Analysis of Obesity in West Virginia," Working Papers Working Paper 2006-13, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    2. Hamdi Lemamsha & Chris Papadopoulos & Gurch Randhawa, 2018. "Perceived Environmental Factors Associated with Obesity in Libyan Men and Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Boncinelli, Fabio & Riccioli, Francesco & Marone, Enrico, 2015. "Do forests help to keep my body mass index low?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 11-17.
    4. Ivan Parise & Penelope Abbott & Steven Trankle, 2021. "Drivers to Obesity—A Study of the Association between Time Spent Commuting Daily and Obesity in the Nepean Blue Mountains Area," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Brueckner, Jan K. & Largey, Ann G., 2008. "Social interaction and urban sprawl," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 18-34, July.
    6. Yuval Arbel & Chaim Fialkoff & Amichai Kerner, 2020. "The Chicken and Egg Problem: Obesity and the Urban Monocentric Model," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 576-606, November.
    7. Peter Congdon, 2019. "Obesity and Urban Environments," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-6, February.
    8. Sun, Bindong & Yan, Hong & Zhang, Tinglin, 2017. "Built environmental impacts on individual mode choice and BMI: Evidence from China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 11-21.
    9. Katharina C. Wirnitzer & Mohamad Motevalli & Derrick R. Tanous & Gerold Wirnitzer & Karl-Heinz Wagner & Armando Cocca & Manuel Schätzer & Werner Kirschner & Clemens Drenowatz & Gerhard Ruedl, 2022. "Study Protocol of “Sustainably Healthy—From Science 2 Highschool & University”—Prevalence of Mixed, Vegetarian, and Vegan Diets Linked to Sports & Exercise among Austrian Tertiary Students and Lecture," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-24, November.
    10. Supa Pengpid & Karl Peltzer, 2021. "Overweight and Obesity among Adults in Iraq: Prevalence and Correlates from a National Survey in 2015," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-10, April.
    11. Costa-Font, Joan & Mas, Núria, 2016. "‘Globesity’? The effects of globalization on obesity and caloric intake," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 121-132.
    12. Charles L. Baum & Shin-Yi Chou, 2016. "Why has the prevalence of obesity doubled?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 251-267, June.
    13. Elijah N. Muange & Marther W. Ngigi, 2021. "Dietary quality and overnutrition among adults in Kenya: what role does ICT play?," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(4), pages 1013-1028, August.
    14. Michelle M. Vine & Rachel E. Laxer & Jessica Lee & Daniel W. Harrington & Heather E. Manson, 2021. "Exploring Factors Contributing to the Implementation of Ontario’s Healthy Kids Community Challenge: Surveys and Key Stakeholder Interviews with Program Providers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-18, October.
    15. Zoë Fannon & Christiaan Monden & Bent Nielsen, 2021. "Modelling non‐linear age‐period‐cohort effects and covariates, with an application to English obesity 2001–2014," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 184(3), pages 842-867, July.
    16. Reid Ewing & Harry W. Richardson & Keith Bartholomew & Arthur C. Nelson & Chang-Hee Christine Bae, 2014. "Compactness vs. Sprawl Revisited: Converging Views," CESifo Working Paper Series 4571, CESifo.
    17. Rundle, Andrew & Field, Sam & Park, Yoosun & Freeman, Lance & Weiss, Christopher C. & Neckerman, Kathryn, 2008. "Personal and neighborhood socioeconomic status and indices of neighborhood walk-ability predict body mass index in New York City," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(12), pages 1951-1958, December.
    18. Florian Kroll & Elizabeth Catherina Swart & Reginald Adjetey Annan & Anne Marie Thow & David Neves & Charles Apprey & Linda Nana Esi Aduku & Nana Ama Frimpomaa Agyapong & Jean-Claude Moubarac & Andrie, 2019. "Mapping Obesogenic Food Environments in South Africa and Ghana: Correlations and Contradictions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-31, July.
    19. Shima Hamidi & Reid Ewing & Zaria Tatalovich & James B. Grace & David Berrigan, 2018. "Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-11, April.
    20. Selin Akaraci & Xiaoqi Feng & Thomas Suesse & Bin Jalaludin & Thomas Astell-Burt, 2020. "A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Associations between Green and Blue Spaces and Birth Outcomes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(8), pages 1-20, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v:2:y:2017:i:3:p:45-55. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.