China’s Path Towards Health-Oriented City Planning

On September 27th, CSCC had the pleasure of welcoming Professor Lan Wang, the founder‬ ‭ and head of the Healthy City Lab and dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at‬ ‭ Tongji University in Shanghai, China. While urban planning is often thought of as a discipline of‬ ‭ architecture and order, Professor Lan Wang's research shows the very real consequences poor‬ ‭ planning can have on residents' physical and mental health. Professor Lan Wang’s research‬ ‭ examines the relationship between urban planning and public health, or as she calls it healthy‬ ‭ city science.‬ ‭

However, as Lan Wang points out, this concept of healthy city science is not completely novel.‬ ‭ The World Health Organization (WHO), invited the concept of healthy cities in 1994 with the‬ ‭ goal of using urban planning as means of improving physical and social environments and‬ ‭ expanding community resources. Professor Lan Wang and her team’s research expands on‬ ‭ this, focusing on real-world implementation of empirically-driven policy as it affects communities‬ ‭ in Shanghai. Lan Wang introduced three key case studies to her team’s research.‬ ‭

The first case study examines the relationship between cognitive health in older adults and their‬ ‭ 15-minute walkable neighborhoods. The results of their work showed that factors such as‬ ‭ floor-area ratio (FAR) above 2.5, road destiny above 13 km/km2, and more than 600‬ ‭ commercial facilities all increase risk for cognitive health in elders. In contrast to this, her team’s‬ ‭ research showed that population density, elderly population destiny, education land use, parks,‬ ‭ outdoor sports, and community cultural facilities all act as protective factors for elderly cognitive‬ ‭ health.‬ ‭

Similar empirical research was completed for modeling and improving ambulance response time‬ ‭ (ART) in Shanghai’s center city. While the WHO denotes ambulance response times should be‬ ‭ under 8 minutes. The area was facing an average 12-minute ART. Using road networks, time‬ ‭ and date, emergency overloading, and weather as predictors (listed in order of significance), her‬ ‭ team was able to create models to predict building-level ART, allowing for precise EMS‬ ‭ optimization. Her team was able to identify the high risk neighborhoods for EMS overloads, and‬ ‭ utilizing 5G networks, local ART decreased to 8.5 minutes.‬ ‭

Further applying their research, Lan Wang’s team implemented health-oriented micro-urban‬ ‭ regeneration in Yangpu park. Taking into account who uses the park and what they want to add,‬ ‭ her team was able to turn the dilapidated area into a popular walking and strolling spot.‬ ‭ Despite the success of Professor Lan Wang’s empirical work and research, she says that her‬ ‭ team has faced challenges applying the same empirical work to other cities in China. Limited‬ ‭ datasets and other factors have impacted her team's abilities to implement similar work in other‬ ‭ Chinese cities.‬ ‭ Nonetheless, her team’s research demonstrates great potential for the future of city planning in‬ ‭ China and around the world, particularly in regards to elder communities. With aging‬ ‭ populations in Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Thailand, healthy city planning‬ ‭ is ever more important. More work needs to be done to mitigate the very real possibility of‬ ‭ large-scale elderly health challenges. Communities will need to be strategically built to support‬ ‭ the growing population of elderly citizens and to ensure that their needs are properly met. In‬ ‭ order to avoid large-scale health crises and inaccessibility for elderly communities, cities around‬ ‭ the world need to further consider their city planning and the impact it may have on their‬ ‭ communities for better and for worse.‬

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