Are compact cities a threat to public health?

Camilla Ihlebæk, Petter Næss and Harpa Stefansdottir

European Planning Studies, 2021, vol. 29, issue 6, 1021-1049

Abstract: Whereas compact cities have long been suggested to be the most sustainable solution for urban development, the health impacts of living in dense urban environments are contested. We present results from a mixed-methods study on the associations between built environment (residential location, neighbourhood density and distance from green space), and general health, back pain, headache, and depressive symptoms in Oslo metropolitan area, Norway. The study indicates that the built environment has some associations with health. However, it does not support claims from an earlier study of aggregate-scale comparisons of geographical districts about the overall negative health impacts of living in the central parts of Oslo. Overall, living close to the main city centre, appears to contribute to better self-reported general health, whereas high local-area density showed a slight opposite association. Otherwise, there were in general few associations between spatial characteristics of the neighbourhood and different health complaints. Based on this and earlier findings, we suggest that the built environment influences residents’ health via different mechanisms that are partly counteracting each other. Whereas inner-city dwellers are more exposed to air pollution and noise, they travel more by physically active modes, avoid time-consuming and dissatisfactory commutes, and might benefit from more social arenas.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2020.1775790 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:29:y:2021:i:6:p:1021-1049

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2020.1775790

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().