mental health

Where Care Meets Confinement
For doctors trying to provide mental health care to people who are incarcerated or detained by the New York City Department of Corrections, city jails pose a challenge — and provide an opportunity.

Can Density Prevent Diabetes?
In Australia, a new study will determine the best ways to make high-density developments healthy places to live.

London Releases Tunnels Map for Claustrophobic Tube Riders
Transport for London has responded to customer requests for a new accessibility measure: a map to help riders avoid long tunnels.

Study: Greenery Improves Quality and Length of Life
Living near vegetation appears to be linked to a longer life and better mental health—for women, at least.
West Side Chicago Votes to Tax Itself to Fund Mental Health Services
After the city's government cut funding to mental health services, closing many of the city's clinics, residents of Chicago's West Side voted overwhelmingly to tax their properties to reverse that trend.

L.A. Homelessness Plan Hitting Speed Bumps
City councilmembers express concern about progress of homelessness plan after receiving a first update report.

Urban Sanity: Understanding Urban Mental Health Impacts and How to Create Saner, Happier Cities
Some experts claim that city living causes mental illness and unhappiness, but a new study indicates that urban environments provide many mental health benefits. Better planning can help make sane and happy cities.

Public Transit May Boost Mental Health
A new study based on an analysis of the residents of Turin, Italy, a city of over 900,000, reveals that walkable access to public transit and urban services benefits mental health, particularly for women and seniors.

Urban Green Spaces Will Make You Happier than Winning the Lottery
A new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology finds that moving to a more-green area can have a long-lasting positive effect on mental health, unlike the short-term jolt from pay rises, promotions or winning the lottery.
Urban Revival Increases Need for Places for Mental Renewal
Kaid Benfield argues that amid our focus on placemaking, density, transit, and walkability we need to find room to talk about how to create sanctuaries, or peaceful places, 'where one can get away and be quiet and still'.
Public Gardens Provide Refuge for California's Alienated Communities
Patricia Leigh Brown looks at the community gardens funded by the California Mental Health Services Act of 2004, which help to heal disadvantaged refugee communities less inclined to use formal mental health treatments.
Are Cities Driving Us Crazy?
Scientists are studying whether the stresses of living in urban environments increases the risks of developing mental health disorders. Global urbanization is making the question an urgent one, writes Alison Abbott.
Pagination
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Caltrans
Smith Gee Studio
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City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service