Healthy Cities, Healthy Settings and Education: How Do They Work Together to Promote Sustainable Development?

Abstract

The creation of healthy cities and settings is at the basis of many health models, is considered a fundamental element for sustainable development, and is one of the best known and successful health promotion strategies. Taking as a starting point the broader concept of health that shifts from the dichotomy of health-disease and considers that the production of health can take place in any space where there is life, this chapter aims to reflect upon the production of healthy and sustainable cities and settings that consider at its core, the subjects that circulate within these spaces. The chapter discusses some of the existing agendas for the development of healthy cities and settings, as proposed by WHO and considers the salutogenic model as an option to promote a paradigm shift in the direction of models that produce life and health at the territorial level. The chapter then reflects upon the role that education can play in the development of healthy and sustainable settings and how education can contribute as an emancipatory, health-promoting practice to sustainable development, pointing to some of the connections that need to be constructed within a context of multiple fragmentations of concepts, agendas, sectors, values and power.