Creating Thriving Communities: How do we build socially productive places?

The Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation Public Seminar series brings together members of the public, researchers and practitioners interested and engaged in urban health issues. The principal aim of the series is to provoke debate and constructive action, linking current best practice in urban development with emerging areas of health research.

The social dimension in the triple bottom line of sustainability has often been overlooked, but increasingly we have seen a focus on assessing the social impact and social value of the built environment (for example through new housing and regeneration projects). Alongside this there has been debate as to how we can create thriving places, where new and existing communities interact to foster community wealth and wellbeing.

In this seminar we draw on expertise from academia, local government, and the NGO and built environment sectors to take a critical look at what social sustainability, social value and community wealth really means in practice, and how such concepts can be assessed and measured. We will also explore why this is important in creating socially productive places through a more 'considerate urbanism' by drawing on a range of real-world examples to create a forum for lively debate and discussion with our audience.