Sense of caring environment: reimagining cities as atmospheres of care

Cities are often planned for efficiency and growth, but what if they are planned for care? This commentary introduces ‘sense of caring environment’ as a critical yet underexplored concept in urban planning and health policy. Scholars have increasingly explored care, compassion, and place in planning theory and practice and cities like Bogotá and Barcelona have developed formal caring city policies. However, there is currently no unified experiential or atmospheric framework to capture how urban spaces feel caring for those who inhabit them. Unlike established place-based constructs such as sense of place, which focus on human-place relations and attachment, this concept emphasises the atmosphere of care – encompassing safety, dignity, empathy, and belonging – as an essential quality shaping urban experiences. Integrating insights from healthcare and nursing, trauma-informed planning, biophilic design, and reparative urbanism, the article argues for reimagining cities as atmospheres of care in which public spaces and community centres promote wellbeing and health outcomes. The article identifies research gaps and priorities for embedding care-sensitive principles into urban policy. It calls for a fundamental shift in planning priorities, emphasising relational, experiential, and care-centred qualities at the core of city-making. This shift is essential for promoting health equity and wellbeing for all.