Restorative Cities: urban design for mental health and wellbeing

by Jenny Roe, Layla McCay

Overview

Overcrowding, noise and air pollution, long commutes and lack of daylight can take a huge toll on the mental well-being of city-dwellers. With mental healthcare services under increasing pressure, could a better approach to urban design and planning provide a solution? The restrictions faced by city residents around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought home just how much urban design can affect our mental health – and created an imperative to seize this opportunity.

Restorative Cities explores a new way of designing cities, one which places mental health and wellness at the forefront. Establishing a blueprint for urban design for mental health, it examines a range of strategies – from sensory architecture to place-making for creativity and community – and brings a genuinely evidence-based approach that will appeal to designers and planners, health practitioners and researchers alike - and provide compelling insights for anyone who cares about how our surroundings affect us. Written by a psychiatrist and public health specialist, and an environmental psychologist with extensive experience of architectural practice, this much-needed work will prompt debate and inspire built environment students and professionals to think more about the positive potential of their designs for mental well-being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350112889
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/12/2021
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.15(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Jenny Roe is Mary Irene DeShong Professor of Design & Health and Director of the Center for Design & Health in the School of Architecture, University of Virginia. An environmental psychologist and former head of Landscape Architecture for an international architectural practice, she has written extensively on restorative environments including for the World Health Organization and The Lancet.

Layla McCay is Director of Policy at the NHS Confederation and Executive Lead of the national Health and Care LGBTQ+ Leaders Network. A psychiatrist and founder of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health, her co-authored book, Restorative Cities: Urban Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing, was a finalist for the Great Places Book Award. Layla McCay has been recognized on the Outstanding 100 LGBTQ+ Executives Role Model List 2023 as a global role model driving LGBTQ+ inclusion in business. She lives with her wife in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements

1. Introduction to Restorative Urbanism
2. The Green City
3. The Blue City
4. The Sensory City
5. The Neighbourly City
6. The Active City
7. The Playable City
8. The Inclusive City
9. The Restorative City

References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"[A]n inspiring, educational, and succinct tour of the intersection of applied psychology, urban planning and design, and public health ... Restorative Cities: Urban Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing is both prudent and empowering ... Readers of the book are left with what feels like an accessible and modern handbook about how to envision and create humane urban settings that tend to the many psychosocial factors that matter now – and will for generations to come." - Cities & Health

"A welcome, timely and important addition to the existing healthy urban planning literature ... Restorative Cities provides the evidence, the inspiration and a call to action. Now we have to act." - Journal of Urban Design and Mental Health

"More than ever, we need the places where we live, work and play to support our mental health. For those creating the built environment, Restorative Cities offers deep health expertise translated into the practical strategies that respond to today's demand for cities that prioritise their residents' health." - Joanna Frank, President & CEO, Center for Active Design

"Post-Covid 19, cities must be equitable and sustainable, and people should live more healthily and happily. Restorative Cities shows how we can do this, by focussing urbanism on mental health and wellbeing." - Gil Penalosa, Founder and Chair of 8 80 Cities, Ambassador for World Urban Parks

From the Publisher