Regulatory or Market-Driven Approaches to Healthy Places?

Planning health policy and practices relies on recognizing planning’s influence on sustainable urban development activities in the built and natural environments. As non-communicable and infectious diseases and other public health challenges persist, the planning system remains an influential determinant of population health and a means to redress entrenched geographical and health disparities. Novel approaches in the United States and United Kingdom can better leverage urban-development interventions to enhance health and equity outcomes. The best way to plan and design for everybody is to understand the places they live and introduce health-oriented, form-based zoning codes; development sites; and policy frameworks. Planners then can use tools that meet people’s needs to tailor and encourage multi-sectoral actions.

Market-driven interventions are operating, without imposition by public authorities, as the real estate industry embraces health and sustainability by voluntarily implementing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria. The two narratives raise questions for planners: Are carrot or stick approaches more effective? Could they work hand-in-hand to achieve a mutually beneficial, public-private partnership approach to healthy placemaking?

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