Sustainable Urban Mobility Policies as a Path to Healthy Cities—The Case Study of LMA, Portugal

Ana Louro, Nuno Marques da Costa and Eduarda Marques da Costa
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Ana Louro: Centre for Geographical Studies, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua Branca Edmée Marques, 1600-276 Lisboa, Portugal
Nuno Marques da Costa: Centre for Geographical Studies, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua Branca Edmée Marques, 1600-276 Lisboa, Portugal
Eduarda Marques da Costa: Centre for Geographical Studies, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua Branca Edmée Marques, 1600-276 Lisboa, Portugal

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-32

Abstract: Sustainable development has become the basis of several worldwide policies over the last few decades, and its role will continue to shape policies for decades to come, especially those that are focused on urban mobility. At the same time, urban mobility is included in the framework of the Healthy Cities movement. In this context, using the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), Portugal, as the study area, this article intends to answer the following research question: are sustainable urban mobility policies contributing to healthy cities? Urban mobility planning and public health instruments were compared with the discourses and practices of those responsible for the implementation of urban mobility policies and Healthy Cities projects. The results reveal that a large number of responses proposed in the mobility planning instruments are, to some extent, related to the principles of healthy cities. Also, while municipal agents tend not to consider the inclusion of those principles, they instead incorporate the concepts of sustainable development. Nevertheless, we found that both approaches overlap the policy directions of healthy cities. On the other hand, public health policies and Healthy Cities projects presented a scarce number of references to its interventions in the urban mobility domain and mainly focused on the promotion of soft modes. It is concluded that, in the case of the observed municipalities of the LMA, the healthy cities framework is greatly benefited by the inclusion of sustainable development principles in all policies, especially those for urban mobility.

Keywords: sustainable development; sustainable urban mobility; public health; healthy cities; policies; urban mobility instruments; content analysis; Lisbon Metropolitan Area; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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