What sort of city is a "Healthy City"?

Ichikawa city is aiming at protecting and enhancing the citizen's health through an approach called "Healthy Cities" promoted by the WHO (World Health Organization).

There are many local authorities in Japan which have had their basic plan aiming at being a “Healthy City”, or have already declared a “Healthy City”. It is natural that all citizens wish to be in good health and many cities hold health issues as an important subject in the city planning policy. In Nov, 2004, Ichikawa city announced the “Healthy City Ichikawa Declaration” in deference to the spirit of the constitution of the WHO. Until then, the City had not particularly emphasized health issues in its basic city plan. Because it is a matter of course that every city policy should be based on citizens’ health issues. However the primary idea to protect citizens’ health can’t be realized without concerted efforts by the whole city.

In Japan, we have high standard of medical care, advanced prevention against disease and thorough prevention of infection. It is fortunate no one has been infected with SARS in Japan during last epidemic. The average life span of Japanese is also the longest in the world. For all that, why it has globally raised issues that the health of citizens resided in urban city has been in problem. While the standard of living has been improved, there has been many problems raised in various aspects, such as foods, housing environment, work, lifestyle and the social and economic environment of urban life. Regarding health, only the issues of health and medical care have been focused on so far. However, it is necessary to improve various conditions of city life in order to raise the level of citizens’ physical, mental and social health. Under such recognition, people who have been working in the fields that might be unrelated to the fields of health and medical care would become more deeply involved in health issues. This is necessary in order to construct the mechanism for securing urban citizens’ health. Such mechanism is now being taken by the WHO. That is the “Healthy Cities” approach.

This Healthy Cities Project by WHO, which started at the WHO European Regional Office in 1986, has been implemented in more than 3000 cities in the world. And there are more than 40 cities in Europe designated by the WHO as “the City of Healthy City Project” and these cities have been leading to form the National Healthy Cities’ Networks with nearly all countries in Europe. In the WHO Regional Office for Western Pacific to which Japan belongs, developed countries in the region have been leading to
implement those activities which have also been spreading to developing countries. In this region, the Alliance for Healthy Cities was founded as an international network in Oct, 2003.

In every region, cities participating in the program have placed the promotion of citizens’ health in the center of the city planning policy as one of the most important issues of the city. Also the advantages of the policy for “Healthy City” have been confirmed as a common perception that realize the continuous development of the city and hand over a stable and high quality of neighboring society to the next generation.

Conceptual Diagram of Healthy City Ichikawa