Correlation of Neighborhood Unit Design with Urban Health

Abstract

With the urbanization process, that gained speed after the Industrial Revolution, urban settlements received intense migration, thus living conditions in cities became more difficult. The fact that the urbanization process cannot develop in a controlled manner and the pressure created by the population in the city has led to the formation of unhealthy living environments and problems that threaten the health of the city. Health is complete well-being of physicallity, mentality and society. Therefore, health is highly associated with environmental factors as well as genetic and individual factors. Urban health is the product of many factors that can affect health, such as living conditions and economic factors, social services and sociocultural environment, built environment, quality of infrastructure services and their accessibility. The environment built from these factors has a direct impact on the health and on the life of individuals, but it is also an important determinant of urban health. The fact that the built environment is a determinant of urban health shows that the city planning discipline can play an active role in improving urban health. Because urban planning manages the formation of living environment features, which is one of the factors affecting urban health. The purpose of this study is to assess the impacts of the problems arising from the urbanization process on urban health in Turkey and to reveal the relationship of urban health with neighborhood unit design and the built environment in the light of literature. For this purpose, this study examines the existing relational solutions and multidimensional theoretical approaches by analyzing the relationship between urban health and the built environment with a comprehensive literature review. Increasing the welfare of people and the entire ecosystem and designing high-quality environments by creating healthy urban living environments in a rapidly urbanizing world should be among the main goals. The realization of these objectives will be achieved through exploration of the urban health’s relation with built environment and neighborhood urban design also through awareness of the integration of the urban health with urban planning policies and urban design principles.