This past week marked the 49th International Making Cities Livable conference in Portland, Oregon. The conference brought together city officials, architects, experts in urban design, health and social sciences to share their work and ideas. When asked about what the public health community should know in order to make communities healthier and more livable, urban green spaces such as parks were frequently part of the equation.
NewPublicHealth.org spoke with some of the attendees of the conference, including Bianca Shulaker, Trust for Public Land Research Coordinator and master planning student at University of Southern California, who emphasized the importance of incorporating health and the environment into urban planning through partnerships across departments.
“You need to know your goal of the project and what metrics are important. A lot of planning departments don’t have that expertise. Through planning and public health partnerships we can create healthier places through that cross-sector capacity-building,” Shulaker said.
Another attendee, Patricia Rios Cabello, Arch, PhD and Urban and Social Studies Professional, spoke to the focus of the impact parks are having in Mexico based on the different health concerns that plague the country in comparison to the United States.
“We’re not having the same kind of problems as the United States and as a result public institutions don’t believe that parks can help…We need to start seeing the design of the city as a preventive tool to decrease the incidence of disease. We’ve got the space. We’ve got the weather, and people who want to be social in outdoor, natural spaces,” Cabello said.
>>Read the full story at NewPublicHealth.org
