Creating Healthy Neighborhoods and Cities (2017-)

Creating Healthy Neighborhoods  by Ann Forsyth, Emily Salomon, and Laura Smead translates research about health and well-being into practical guidelines and considers how planners, designers, civic leaders, and activists can create places that reflect a broader concept of health or well-being. The team uses guidance based on research findings where those are available and fill the research gaps using frameworks about how health and place are related more generally and in relation to specific topics and types of places. In addition, the process of implementing new ideas is not unique to health but rather draws on a larger base of research evidence and professional experience. So in the end this can be read as a publication of ideas and guidelines for good planning and design, filtered through the lens of health. It was translated into Chinese.

Additional work has continued to explore general connections between health and places

Award

Publications

2024     Forthcoming, A. Forsyth. Urban Design and Healthy Suburbs. In M. Larice, M. O’Neill Robinson, and A. Penniman eds. The Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Practice. New York: Routledge.

2024     A. Forsyth and Y. Lyu. Making Communities Age-Friendly: Lessons from Implemented Programs. Journal of Planning Literature 39, 1: 3-24.

2024     Review Essay, L. Brown, Active Living and the Politics of Implementation: A Review Essay of Political Exercise: Active Living, Public Policy, and the Built Environment (2022), Political Science Quarterly 139, 1: 107-115.

2023     J. Molinsky and A. Forsyth. Climate Change, Aging, and Well-being: How Residential Setting Matters. Housing Policy Debate 33, 5: 1029-1054.

2023     A. Forsyth. Creating Healthy Neighborhoods: Reflecting on Places, Processes, and Prospects. Landscape Architecture Journal (China) 30: 15-19.

2022     Y. Lyu and A. Forsyth. Planning, Aging, and Loneliness: Reviewing Evidence about Built Environment Effects. Journal of Planning Literature 37, 1: 28-48.

2022      A. Forsyth. The Boldness of Healthy Cities. Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy 5, 1: 22-25.

2021     A. Forsyth and R. Peiser. Lessons from Planned Resettlement and New Town Experiences for Avoiding Climate Sprawl. Landscape and Urban Planning 205: article 103957.

2020     A. Forsyth. What is a Healthy Place? Models for Cities and Neighborhoods. Journal of Urban Design 25, 2: 186-202.

• Reprinted in T. Townshend, Urban Design and Human Flourishing, Routledge, 2021.

2017     A. Forsyth, E. Salomon, and L. Smead. Creating Healthy Neighborhoods: Evidence-based Planning and Design Strategies. Chicago: APA Planners Press/New York: Routledge.