Much of the research on urbanization has focused on how rural populations move to cities for work opportunities. This paper takes a different perspective on the relations between rural populations and urbanization.

Over the past centuries, cities have undergone major transformations that led to global urbanization. One of the phenomena emerging from urbanization is urban sprawl, defined as the uncontrolled spread of cities into undeveloped areas.

This article synthesises the challenges faced by the English (urban) spatial planning system to become an enabler of urban health and explores some keys features of the evidence base, policy tools and policy implementation issues that urban planners need to be aware of to become health enablers.

Current urban developments are often considered outdated and static, and the argument follows that they should become more adaptive. In this paper, we argue that existing urban development are already adaptive and incremental.