The Lancet Planetary Health, June 2025

City planning for the future

4·6 billion people, more than half of the World’s population, live in urban areas, and in many high-income countries more than 80% of the population is urban. Over the next 25 years the global population living in towns and cities is projected to increase to almost 7 billion, with many middle-and lower-income countries transitioning from majority rural to majority urban populations. As cities grow, their design and governance will become ever more important intervention points to improve health and sustainability, and we will need research that evidences the value of different interventions and guides their best implementation.

A trio of linked papers published in The Lancet Planetary Health and The Lancet Public Health look at transport behaviours and related health outcomes in cities during public emergencies.