Background

The Fenner Conference 2006 will take a broad approach, within a human ecology framework, to the increasingly important topic of the physical and social environments in Australia's cities. Cities have become the dominant human habitat, and this is particulatly so in Australia, where capital cities continue to grow rapidly. To our immediate north there is a burgeoning urban expansion in East and South Asia.

Against this background, there is an upswing in political and scientific interest in cities in relation to environmental conditions, sustainability and health, both in Australia and internationally.

The many facets of the urban environment exert a range of positive and negative influences on human wellbeing and health. Given the centrality of urban development to human futures and to the attainment of sustainability, there is urgent need for an interdisciplinary exploration of these issues, and a broadly-based strategy of action. City populations also exert enormous, far-spread pressures on natural environments: land, sea and air.

The demographic transition (with an increasing proportion of older Australians) and associated lifestyle choices are driving ribbon development along the coastline, expecially between Sydney and Brisbane. Meanwhile, with rising wealth levels, and growing absolute demands, water consumption and re-use is on the agenda in cities, as is the issue of energy consumption and green-house gas emissions in association with urban settlements (car reliance, transport, housing, etc). These and other developments raise concerns about urban population 'carrying capacity' in Australia.

• Large cities are a relatively modern manifestation of human culture: hence, we still have much to learn about the design and management of urban environments. During the evolution of cities, there has been a changing series of mismatches between urban environments and the needs of human biology and psychology. Today, various mismatches contribute to the burden of poor health and disability, at all ages.

In 19th century cities, the major urban health penalites were due to:

1. infectious diseases, both endemic and epidemic,
2. limited food supplies and quality, and
3. local chemical pollution of air and water.

In eliminating most of these problems, we have acquired a new set of urban health penalties. These include:

1. a systemic imbalance in daily energy balance (energy-dense foods, reduced physical activity) leading to a marked rise in obesity in both children and adults,
2. declines in life-satisfaction and in mental health, reflecting, variously, time-pressures at work, fewer social contacts, an increased emphasis on material acquisitions, and a lesser sense of safety, and
3. the growing longer-term risks to wellbeing and health from urban pressures on the world's climate, coastal ecosystems, productive farmlands, and freshwater supplies.

• Cities are major centres of economic activity, innovatory design, social opportumity, education and artistic endeavour. This, of course, is why we like city life and are drawn to live there. However, the real criterion of 'sustainability' must be measured in terms of the quality of human experience, and the capacity to maintain it at a high level. Measures of economic activity, prosperity, infrastructure, availability of education and health services, and so on are thus only means to human ends. Therefore we should treat contemporary 'triple bottom-line accounting' carefully, since those several indices of economic activity, environmental conditions and social relations/structures are all at one remove from what really matters - i.e., the levels of human autonomy, opportunity, security, wellbeing and health.
  


• Related to the above point, we in Australia should think creatively about the set of indicators that we could develop and use to assess and monitor the sustainability of our cities. As is increasingly appreciated, 'sustainability' is a big, and challenging, issue. It is not merely about improving the quality of local air, nor ensuring the flow of goods and services. Rather, sustainability is about whether we have the collective wit to create urban living conditions that are good for human comfort, wellbeing and health and are supportive of the planet's life-supporting systems. It is for this reason that we are beginning to see explorations of less conventional, more integrative, indicators such as the 'genuine progress indicator', the urban 'ecologicat footpriint', and indices of human wellbeing and health.

Tony McMichael
Professor and Director,
National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health