Well-being, social interaction and physical activity: encouraging healthy behaviours through quality urban design

In recent years, the healthy city topic has become more and more present in both research studies and urban actions. According with many principles declared in the Quito New Urban Agenda, the centrality of this topic is due to many important factors: the climate change; the lengthening of human lifespan; the necessity of a wider accessibility in social, physical and environmental sense. But also: disparities, crowding, noise, pollution, which can produce stress and encourage people in avoid social relationships that are important for mental well-being; low presence of green, which results in possible reduction of leisure time, security and privacy; the increasing use of the Internet followed by a decreasing in the use of public space; the demand of always more specific types of food; the increasing in metropolitan, street and city sports of different kinds. Although the recognition of the importance of liveable spaces for keeping people in good health and improve social interaction, it is difficult to demonstrate that good urban design is capable to reduce for example hearth disease. The increasing in the number of people who spend time, walk and cycle on the streets can be shown easily and this is a first measure to demonstrate the success of the environment from the healthy point of view. Starting from these premises, this work will illustrate the principal definition of healthy city mainly related to public spaces and the Charter of urban health with 25 principles carried out in the framework of the IRISS CNR research project "Contemporary urban landscape design: place identity, happiness, liveability, health and sustainability" (Responsible: M.Sepe). The principles - following an holistic approach - should be considered as dynamic, in keeping with the increasingly rapid rates of change in a place and are both a check-list and guide lines for sustainable spaces.