Toward healthy and liveable cities: a new framework linking public health to urbanization

Abstract Urbanization and public health are becoming intertwined together with global natural and social changes. As recommended by the Tsinghua-Lancet Commission on Health Cities in China, cities hold the key to a healthy China. However, China is facing enormous health risks and challenges stemming from rapid and unhealthy urbanization patterns, which are still dominated by centralized planning for large-scale spatial extension and industrial production facilities. We propose a new conceptual framework to explain the evolving relationship between urbanization and public health, from a spatiotemporal perspective. Healthy China should be given a strong focus on healthy urbanization, wellbeing, and sustainable development. To achieve this objective, we explore the potentials of the concept and approaches of liveable cities to complement the deficiencies of the current centralized planning approach of urbanization. Furthermore, to make the concept of Healthy China operational for policy and urban planning, we propose a set of indicators that can be applied together with the spatiotemporal framework to assess the health and livability of cities.