Cities and environmental change

Over half of the Earth’s human population is currently crammed into an estimated one to three percent of the planet’s surface, and the trend is likely to continue. This chapter explores the particular environmental challenges for planetary health that come with the urban concentration of humanity. It provides an overview of climate and health threats faced by urban residents and outlines an array of possible solutions, ranging from transport infrastructure to the built environment to food systems to disaster resilience, applicable to urban settings overall and especially to megacities, which come with an added degree of heterogeneity and complexity. Yet for cities to successfully adapt to the dynamic set of climate and health risks is by no means guaranteed. The authors conclude, however, that with vision, boldness, creativity, and commitment to working in partnership across stakeholder groups, it is entirely possible to realize urban environments which both meet human health needs and demands of sustainability.