The World Towards the Future

Today, more than half of the world's population live in urban areas. To achieve sustainable and healthy development, it is essential to rethink the way cities are built and organized. Health means much more than the physical situation of a person or a community or the health care system; A healthy city is based on a commitment to improve the living conditions of all its inhabitants. However, in practice, many of them continue to be planned and designed without considering its citizens’ needs and scales of well-being. This research is based on the work of the MGI Morgenstadt Global Smart Cities Initiative in Piura, an intermediate city in Peru that is strongly affected by the consequences of climate change. Through a City Lab, the initiative seeks to generate replicable and viable solutions and strategies using advanced technologies and an in depth analysis of local development demand. Based on a selection of indicators and their impact factors, comparative data is used to evaluate Piura's performance holistically, supporting the concept of a healthy city and the local action needed to comply with the SDGs and the New Urban Agenda. The analyzed data and its results help to define urban projects at the local level that aim to address the challenges identified in the city and building on the achievement of a long-term vision development. The proposed solutions are based on aspects of health in its different dimensions, combining with opportunities for social and economic innovation that support sustainable urban development.