Original Scholarship - Conceptual

A systemic health check for cities

Franz W. Gatzweiler, Gabriele Harrer-Puchner, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, Graham Alabaster, Felix Fuders, Hany Ayad, Yonette Thomas, Saroj Jayasinghe, Nicolas You, Lin Jianyi, Mari Vaattovaara, Rumiana Jeleva

Received 04 Apr 2025, Accepted 05 Feb 2026, Published online: 28 Apr 2026

Abstract

Without sound knowledge of a cities’ systemic health condition, cities cannot effectively mobilize their capacities for growth, resilience or systemic transformation. Which actions need to be taken depends on a city’s initial health condition. To address that shortcoming, we suggest a measure and step-by-step method for assessing the systemic health condition of cities comprising of a rapid urban health check, a more comprehensive systemic health analysis, and the World Health Organisation’s urban health capacity assessment. Knowledge of the urban systemic health condition of a city is a precondition for deciding on the type of investments and governance strategy for making cities fit for the future.

Publications & Resources

In the introduction episode of the podcast series, Dr. Shaily Gandhi speaks with Dr. Simon Hodson and Dr. Franz Gatzweiler. Together, they discuss Data-Knowledge-Action systems and take a deep dive into the need for such systems for urban sectors.

Dr. Shaily Gandhi is Manager Informatics at CRDF. She is an alumnus of CODATA/RDA Summer school and one of the initiated Leads for the CODATA Connect Working group and a co-opted member of the CODATA Executive Committee. Dr. Gandhi has completed her PhD degree from CEPT University in 2018. She is also a faculty at CEPT University. Dr. Gandhi has been working on the implementation of GIS and data science in the domain of Urban Analytics.

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