Suburbanization and Healthy Neighborhood: A Conceptual Review

To comprehend the health implications of suburbanization in China, this chapter intends to lay a theoretical foundation by reviewing the literature related to suburbanization and health-promoting environments. A human ecological perspective is adopted, focusing on the transactions between people and their environments. Suburbanization as a distinctive form of urban expansion and residential neighborhoods as identifiable human settlements are selected as the basis for analysis. In addition, a healthy neighborhood is treated as a theoretical concept as well as a goal of urban development. A human ecological conceptual framework for understanding health determinates in the urban environment is formulated, and institutional factors in suburbanization and housing development are raised as an explanatory tool, which formulate the residential environment and the resultant way of life.