Inland blue spaces, or freshwater environments, have been shown to provide people with positive mental health and wellbeing outcomes. Most inland blue space research focusing on wellbeing outcomes has so far been crosssectional, utilising questionnaires and interviews. Therefore, there is significant uncertainty regarding the potential for inland waterways to benefit human populations over longer-term time scales. Across a sixteen-month data collection period, this study recruited four distinct sample groups to complete diaries for periods of threemonths, focusing on inland blue space experiences in Scotland. The aim of the study was to use solicited diary methods to establish whether restorative exposure outcomes gained from visiting blue spaces may vary across time. Results from the diary data show that visiting freshwater areas consistently led to positive restorative outcomes, with minimal variation in restorative outcomes observed across time. Participants recorded three principal categories of blue space experiences; routine visits, getting fresh air; and day trips, with each visit type providing a range of restorative benefits. The findings highlight the potential for inland blue spaces to act as versatile public health resources and the need to consider long-term strategies to ensure these environments benefit populations across time.

skills in Latin, French, and Middle English can use the edition for substantiation. This is a core text for historians of premodern London, as well as anyone interested in the social, economic, and architectural history of England’s capital city. Not only is it a history of the wealth of the Goldsmiths’ Company but it forms part of the story of the men and women of the city and how they interacted with one of London’s great, original twelve livery companies.

Freshwater (inland) blue space environments provide a range of public health benefits to visitors. However, health related exposure outcomes are dynamic and can vary depending on several factors, including the environmental characteristics of freshwater environments and their surroundings. Developing and managing inland blue spaces to promote health and wellbeing therefore requires an understanding of whether specific freshwater attributes, and prevailing weather conditions, enhance or devalue landscape aesthetics. The aim of this study was to utilise a mixed-methods research approach to investigate aesthetic preferences of inland blue spaces. A three-phase data collection method was adopted involving (i) analysis of a national-scale landscape image dataset; in combination with (ii) a national-scale online survey; and (iii) a series of in-person focus groups. We found environmental characteristics associated with the waterbody itself, as well as the characteristics of the nearby green space, to have a significant impact on the overall aesthetic appeal of inland blue spaces. Strong preference was demonstrated for inland blue spaces perceived to be of a high environmental quality and which have a natural, rather than human-modified, appearance. The findings highlight the need to conserve the quality of both the waterbody and waterside environment to encourage frequent recreational use and maintain the beneficial public health outcomes associated with inland blue spaces.

With healthcare systems facing growing pressure from ageing populations and associated complex care needs, attention is increasingly being focused on sustainable strategies to improve health outcomes across populations. Encouraging access to natural environments is one form of preventative public health strategy that has been shown to lead to improved physical and mental health outcomes at the population level. A significant body of research has documented the health benefits of accessing a wide range of natural environments, including green space and coastal areas. However, freshwater resources, or inland blue spaces, have received less attention in the field of human–environment interactions. This critical review highlights current research opportunities for developing rich and nuanced insight into inland blue space experiences. Future research must take steps to account for the dynamic and unique nature of inland blue spaces through the application of a wide range of flexible and sensitive research methodologies alongside the application of broader mixed methods research approaches. To effectively utilise inland blue spaces as public health resources, it is vital that research captures the influence of temporal changes on blue space interactions and considers the overarching impact of context-specific factors. Addressing current research gaps in combination with advancing research methodologies offers the potential to consolidate inland blue space findings and create a robust evidence base for the implementation of effective public health policies.

On 5 May 2023, the World Health Organisation announced that the COVID-19 global health emergency was at an end (WHO 2023). This development is another significant time stamp in the progression of the Covid syndemic (Ellis et al. 2021), marking an end to the emergency phase but by no means an end to the public health threat. It seems like a good moment to be writing a new editorial about COVID-19, reflecting on past experiences as well as the future challenges and opportunities brought by the syndemic and its aftermath.

Human health and planetary health are influenced by the urban environments we have created. For both human and planetary health, trends showing a current decline and ongoing risks are leading to increasing concern globally. It is imperative that finding solutions becomes a core focus for urban policy. This will require concerted action. Cities & Health is dedicated to supporting a multidirectional flow of knowledge to help make this happen. We wish to foster conversations between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities, and decision-makers in cities. This is the purpose of this section, with its short 'City Know-how' policy briefings of research findings. The team at Cities & Health, and our knowledge partners (International Society for Urban Health and SALUS.Global), invite you to join their networks, and contribute to the conversations we so urgently need. We call out to communities, researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to consider publishing in Cities & Health to help influence urban policy.

During recent decades, there has been a growing consideration of the role of blue and green spaces on mental health of children, but there is insufficient attention in the literature to the mental health of children with disabilities. This paper presents an overview of the evidence on how blue and green spaces affect the mental health of children with various disabilities. A database search found twenty studies eligible for the review, after several consecutive screening stages. Most studies used a cross-sectional design and were carried out in Europe. The results consistently indicate that blue and green space can reduce emotional, behavioral, and social problems in disabled children. A protective association was found between the level of blue or greenness and depressive and anxiety symptoms. Moreover, in most of the studies there were no significant changes in the result after adjusting for socioeconomic confounders. Generally, there is an identified need for more short-term exposure studies in this area, focusing on the impact of landscape design elements on mental health of disabled children. The findings of this scoping review call on urban planners, health care workers and decision makers to consider appropriate measures and interventions providing more blue and green space exposure to disabled children.

This editorial introduces the origin, purpose and scope of a Special Issue on COVID-19. It brings together 43 contributions from across the globe that examine the way in which COVID-19 has challenged the way we think about urban design, spatial planning and city governance. The editorial draws out a number of key messages from this body of work, highlighting how the impact of COVID-19 has been most devastating when combined with the existing vulnerabilities and chronic ill-health experienced in pre-pandemic cities. Following The Lancet, we, therefore, characterise this as a syndemic rather than pandemic, due to the way it interacts with existing urban NCDs. This provides further resolve to address long-standing urban health inequalities and challenges, while seeking more holistic ways of addressing these, for example through the Sustainable Development Goals. The editorial explains the role of our partners in the Special Issue (ISUH, Design Council and BOVA Network), draws out some of the themes from the collected papers, and finally highlights an agenda for future contributions to Cities & Health that will allow us to better understand and respond to the aftermath of the COVID-19 syndemic.

Effective soundscape planning, in accordance with the ISO soundscape standard series, is predicated on accurately assessing the human response to sound in context. ccurately assess the human response for this purpose requires the identification of context specific non-acoustic factors (NAFs). In particular, the NAF of stakeholders' perceived control over sound from developments directly impacts the effectiveness of engagement in planning processes. However, what constitutes perceived control can vary widely, including stakeholders' experiences, perceptions and requirements in context. Perceived control affect quality of life and therefore it is a factor in sustainable planning and development processes. This primarily qualitative constructivist grounded theory study investigates the NAFs comprising stakeholders' perceived control and the impact on effective engagement in the context of planning and soundscape management for airport expansion projects in the UK. The initial stages of this research included participant observation and 1:1 interviews. Preliminary findings indicate context specific discrete aspects regarding communication quality (as distinct from quantity) as intrinsic to developing, supporting and maintaining perceived control amongst stakeholders. This research builds on existing soundscape and noise and health findings to develop a conceptual framework for effective stakeholder engagement for standardised soundscape design and planning in the built environment.

Walkable neighbourhood characteristics, such as connectivity and land use mix, have been found to correlate with people walking more and being active. However, the relationship between the built environment and behaviour is highly complex making it difficult to develop generalisable and predictive models. This paper reports qualitative findings from 21 in-depth interviews conducted with urban residents who had relocated between neighbourhoods of high and low walkability. Participants' preferences are reported within key domains (shop access, green space and travel links). These reveal that walkable characteristics were preferred and desired regardless of whether the participant had moved to a high or low walkable area. We contrast surface preferences with an analysis of relocation stories: complex assemblages of biographical narratives, identity work and cultural representations. The findings reveal how neighbourhood types are consistently associated with life stages and that moving to a suburban home was felt to be a definitive type of relocation in which it was acceptable to put neighbourhood preferences aside. Residential self-selection is not yet properly understood and we recommend studies of relocation stories for examining the sociocultural meanings that are likely to inform relocation decisions.

Physical inactivity is a global pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis has altered global patterns of physical activity in ways that were unimaginable before the outbreak. Enforced restrictions on mobility and the mass closure of indoor fitness centres has highlighted the limitations of many urban areas for enabling physical activity and reinforced inequalities in physical activity opportunities across cities. However, unprecedented reductions in mobility and increases in localised physical activity provide unique insight on opportunities for urban health promotion. COVID-19 responses can, therefore, encourage new perspectives in urban planning and inspire novel future strategies to design more sustainable, healthier and equitable cities.

CITY KNOW-HOW Human health and planetary health are influenced by city lifestyles, city leadership, and city development. For both, worrying trends are leading to increasing concern and it is imperative that human health and environmental impacts become core foci in urban policy. Changing trajectory will require concerted action; the journal Cities & Health is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions, to help make this happen. We wish to foster communication between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities, and decision-makers in cities. This is the purpose of the City Know-how section of the journal. ‘Research for city practice’ disseminates lessons from research by explaining key messages for city leaders, communities, and the professions involved in city policy and practice. ‘City shorts’ provide glimpses of what is being attempted or achieved ‘on the ground’ and ’case studies’ are where you will find evaluations of interventions. Last, ‘Commentary and debate’ extends conversations we are having to develop and mobilize much needed new thinking. Join in these conversations. In order to strengthen the community of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from younger practitioners and researchers who are supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives.

Within the field of cities and health, the complexity of cities is mirrored by a plethora of whole-city initiatives and networks trying to address key issues. In addition to various ‘healthy city’ ...

CITY KNOW-HOW Human health and planetary health are both influenced by city lifestyles, city leadership, and city development. For both, worrying trends are leading to increasing concern. It is imperative that both become core foci in urban policy. Changing the trajectory will require concerted action. The journal Cities & Health journal is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions to help make this happen. We want to support communication between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities and decision-makers in cities. This is the purpose of this City Know-how section of the journal. ‘Research for city practice’ disseminates lessons from research, explaining the key messages for city leaders, communities and the professions involved in city policy and practice. ‘City shorts’ provide glimpses of what is being attempted or achieved. ’Case studies’ are where you will find evaluations of interventions and ‘Commentary and debate’ helps extend the conversations we are having and develop much needed new thinking. Join in these conversations. In service to strengthening the community of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from younger practitioners and researchers, connected with supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives.

Growing evidence suggests that work breaks in greenspace may promote the well-being of knowledge-sector workers, yet understanding of person–environment interactions in relation to the outdoor setting of workplaces is underdeveloped. This study investigated relationships between individual factors and both employees’ use of workplace greenspace and the restoration outcomes they experienced from outdoor work breaks, through a questionnaire survey ( N = 366) of employees at five urban-fringe science park business sites. A series of regression models suggested that job stress was positively related to levels of greenspace use and restoration benefits; however, the restoration reported by users varied depending on the social context of use. At the same time, key groups less engaged with the greenspace were identified. Finally, the analysis suggests that although some work-related factors may influence person–environment interactions in this context, individuals’ relationship with greenspace appears to transcend the domains of work and home/leisure to a large degree.

The Cities and Health journal sees its launch in 2017. Looking back over half a century of growth and global expansion in economic activity, although there have been societal benefits, negative impacts are starting to take their toll on planetary resources and human health. As we enter what is being termed The Anthropocene, the city is becoming the preferred habitat for humanity. The imprint of city lifestyles, in terms of both resource use and waste, is found across the globe, threatening the ecosystem services that support our health. In cities themselves, due to risks and challenges to health, we are witnessing a rise in non-communicable disease, twinned with infectious disease for the many who live increasingly in informal or slum urban development. High levels of health inequity are found within urban populations. The resultant health problems are placing increasing strain on health services, with pressure only set to increase due to continuing urbanization and ageing populations. Evidence increasingly demonstrates that many aspects of city and neighbourhood form, urban and transport design, and residential environments play an important role in mediating health and health equity outcomes. The new journal Cities & Health is being launched to support political, academic and technical leadership and transdisciplinarity in this field. For this endeavour we will need to re-examine the nature of evidence required before we act; to explore how academics, policy-makers, practitioners and communities can best collaborate using the city as a laboratory for change; and to develop capacity building for healthier place-making at professional and community levels.

The potential well-being benefits associated with the use of privately owned greenspaces in working environments have received little research attention. Given the growing evidence on the restorative benefits of urban greenspace, and the fact that many people spend most of their daily hours at the workplace, the question of whether physical access to green environments from workplaces can promote well-being is a pertinent one. Person-environment relationships in peri-urban business sites were investigated in a series of semi-structured go-along' interviews with employees at Scottish science parks. Workers described a range of well-being benefits from outdoor breaks and associated these with qualities of the environment. Semi-natural and informally landscaped areas were most strongly associated with restoration during the working day. The implications of the findings for the planning and design of business sites at the urban fringe are explored.