Briefing: Politics, planning and health – an inconvenient truth Available to Purchase

The prevailing public discourse about health – at least in the United Kingdom – is much more about illness and how to cope with it than health. It is about the crisis of the National Health (or illness) service and the related issue of social care. However, much research demonstrates that wellness is tied up with income, equality, lifestyle choices (diet and exercise) and environment. And there is powerful evidence that we are literally building unhealthy conditions into the environment. This paper does not provide all the evidence in a systematic way – that has been done very fully in other sources – but takes the theme of the urban environment and relates it back to political philosophy and forward to health and well-being, telling the stories of three contrasting cities.