Smart Cities, Healthy Cities: City as a Health Ecosystem

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers argues that, though individual actions are crucial, success has much to do with the genetics and environment. If you have not read this interesting work, you can read an excerpt (First Chapter) in the NY Times website, which praises the work of Dr. Stewart Wolf. Upon realizing the low incidence of heart disease of a community of Italian immigrants, Dr. Wolf eventually discovered that aspects of their community were the biggest contributing factors, rather than genetics, diet, exercise and other commonly discussed health parameters. When we think of Smart Cities, we cannot avoid thinking about how healthy they are to live in. Inevitably, we must consider the Objective environment. For instance, how healthy is the air, the water, the available food choice? Does the city facilitate physical fitness or a more sedentary lifestyle? However, Dr. Wolf's work suggests the more intangiable, Subjective or internal life of citizens can lead to Objectively different health outcomes, as well. In other words, cities are not just places to sleep, eat, commute, work but also places to contemplate, to learn, to commune, and to play. No city that overlooks the quality of the subjective reality of its citizens, their happiness, and the intersubjective aspect, their sense of connectedness with those around them, can call itself a smart city.