ZEF Public Lecture on A Measure and Method for Assessing the Systemic Health of Cities and Human Settlements

March 27, 2025 | 13:30 h - 14:30 h

ZEF Public Lecture

Topic: A Measure and Method for Assessing the Systemic Health of Cities and Human Settlements
Speaker: Dr Franz Gatzweiler (ZEF Senior Fellow)
Venue: ZEF, Room 1.049 (Genscherallee 3, 53113 Bonn) and online

If you want to attend online please register and join via zoom: https://uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/j/61263438272?pwd=Xmbi82D3aoojvh4XwwbkXbDlHPtAlP.1

Abstract

Cities play a crucial role in achieving the sustainable development goals by balancing the wellbeing of people and the health of the planet. They are an indication for the increasing complexity of human societies. This systemic health measure and method aims at capturing the interconnectedness, externalities and feedbacks of cities and human settlements by including the health benefits and costs for people and the planet. Currently we only have indices that assess people’s health and well-being in cities or cities’ economic and environmental performance. They do not account for the environmental or social costs of creating health and wellbeing for people and the feedback they have on human health: their systemic health. Without knowledge of their systemic health, cities cannot mobilize their capacity for resilience by adequately responding to climate change, or coping with resource, or demographic challenges. To address that shortcoming of an index the measure needs to be combined with a transdisciplinary systems modelling method, by means of which the strength and degree of interconnectivity of the health indicators can be modelled and levers identified that improve the systemic health of cities. We suggest to use the index as an initial health check for cities and the modelling as a comprehensive systemic health check. Their combined application is a conceptual innovation as it transforms the conventional science model towards transdisciplinarity.