Health, an enduring theme for urban planning

The contribution investigates the relationship between health and planning and describes the impact of the pandemic on the resurgence of health as a topic able to orient urban planning. The first section describes some significant episodes in the planning history of two European countries, England and Italy, to demonstrate that issues of sanitation and health have guided the transformation of cities and have shaped modern town planning since its origins, dated back in late XIX century. In the second section, we highlight a resurgence in the last 30-40 years of an interest in well-being and quality of life by planning policies in Europe thanks to some international movements, the Time of the City and the Healthy Cities. In the section 3 we examine the contribution of cities in reacting to the Covid-19 pandemic by presenting a number of planning strategies, policies and actions implemented by local governments, that have been experimenting with new forms of urban proximity. The final section discusses the extent to which the global pandemic has brought innovations to the debate regarding the relationship between health and planning.