The Built Environment and Public Health in India

This volume deals with the determinants of both good and bad health, at individual as well as community levels, or in a broader sense, all of which are determined by multiple, critically interlinked actors that are surprisingly concentrated within the built environment. It analyzes the critical challenges in contemporary Indian cities — rapid urbanization accompanied by challenges from climate change, abnormal weather, urban flooding, and many other extreme events. This work is a timely effort that encompasses the prospects and constraints of public health when India is rapidly urbanizing, which puts severe strains on pre-existing urban health infrastructure and services to meet basic human needs, along with significant shrinkage of open, green spaces. It is also relevant when India is recovering from the nightmare of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was largely an urban health hazard, and the Indian urban health system needs substantial renewal. The book sheds light on those Indian cities, surprisingly two-thirds of the total numbers, that lack local area plans, zonal plans, and master plans. This absence affects a significant proportion of the urban population that is outside the planned neighborhoods, with unplanned, and in most cases inadequate, health infrastructure and services. This volume takes  into account the typical health behavior in the built environment due to the increasing likelihood of a sedentary lifestyle that leads to anxiety, cardiovascular diseases, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, asthma, and many other similar signs of poor health associated with this lifestyle. The book serves to explore the linkages between the isolated notions of green spaces, smart cities, physical activities, mental health, and other beneficial elements. Amid the urban–industrial framework, these factors could be effective in resolving the critical public health crisis in transformative built environments and cityscapes through the synthesis of cross-disciplinary knowledge.