Healthy Cities with Healthy Streets, Towards a New Normal of Urban Health and Well-Being

Abstract

This paper intends to illustrate the results of a line of research that explores the characteristics and aspects of the public space par excellence, the city streets, and the potential that this space has to become a third, accessible and inclusive place, generating returns in terms of 360° sociality, well-being, health, and urban well-being. The need for public space, amplified by the restrictions of the pandemic, together with the possibility of being able to move and keep fit, is today more than ever a prerogative to guarantee the right to health enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Therefore, urban plans should prepare large spaces for pedestrian networks, extend them to the whole territory, and integrate them with systems and infrastructures for sustainable public/private transport (trains, trams, buses, zero-emission car sharing, cycle paths), strategically creating a multimode hub. This new way of moving would allow the transition from hypermobility, which congested urban centers mainly, to the fluidity of movements on a human scale, which can help cope with emergencies of all kinds, better health conditions, and physical well-being, and mental for people.