Building Healthier Cities: A Call for Geographers and Building Professionals to Collaborate through Geospatial Data

By Oluwaseun Ipede

As our cities grow more complex and environmental crises mount, urban sustainability is no longer a theoretical discussion; it’s an existential necessity. Among the greatest challenges facing 21st-century cities is balancing rapid urbanization with public health and environmental sustainability. At the heart of this challenge lies an indispensable asset: Geospatial data.

Geospatial data is the connective tissue that binds physical infrastructure, human behavior, and environmental systems. But data alone is not enough. Its responsible use requires geographers, academic and professional, human and physical, cartographic and computational, to engage collaboratively with built environment professionals such as architects, engineers, and construction (AEC) specialists. In doing so, we can transform urban spaces into sustainable, healthy cities that serve both people and the planet.

This perspective calls for a more intentional convergence between academic geography and the built environment professions. We must create stronger alliances between geographers and AEC practitioners to unlock the full potential of geospatial technologies, not only for smarter infrastructure but for a higher Public Health Index (PHI), a metric that integrates the determinants of health within the spatial context of urban development.

Why Geospatial Thinking Matters in the AEC World

The AEC sector is in the midst of a digital revolution driven by tools such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), GIS, IoT, and AI. Yet, what’s often missing from this techno-centric evolution is geographical thinking, the ability to analyze the spatial dimensions of urban life, social equity, and environmental justice.

AEC professionals typically design and construct the built environment based on functional needs, client specifications, and engineering requirements. But without geographers’ input, they may overlook socio-spatial disparities, ecological sensitivity, or historical injustices embedded in urban landscapes.

By leveraging geospatial data, geographers can help architects and engineers ask better questions:

• Are green spaces equitably distributed?
• What neighborhoods face the highest air pollution burden?
• Where are vulnerabilities to urban heat islands concentrated?
• How does access to healthcare, clean water, and public transport vary across districts?

These are not only public health questions, but also inherently geographic questions. The answers lie in maps, models, and location-based data.

Public Health and Urban Sustainability: A Spatial Convergence

There is growing recognition that the health of urban populations is shaped more by where people live than by individual behavior. The WHO’s urban health framework emphasizes that air quality, noise pollution, walkability, access to nature, and housing conditions are all place-based determinants of health.

In a 2021 article in Nature Sustainability, Nieuwenhuijsen et al. demonstrated how integrated urban and transport planning using spatial models could significantly reduce premature deaths in cities by designing healthier environments. Similarly, the Lancet Global Health commission on urban design highlighted the health dividends of data-informed land use, mobility, and environmental planning (Giles-Corti et al., 2016).

The missing piece? Systematic and sustained collaboration between academic geographers and built environment professionals, rooted in shared access to data and mutually informed practices.

Bridging Academic Research and Real-World Impact

Academic geography often generates invaluable insights into urban systems, population health, environmental exposure, and spatial justice. Yet, these insights are frequently siloed, buried in journals, datasets, or local case studies without pipelines into professional practice.

By contrast, AEC professionals often possess the authority and tools to shape real environments but may lack the time or training to engage with cutting-edge geographic research. The result is a fragmentation that wastes both insight and opportunity.

A more effective model would:

• Create applied research partnerships where academic institutions support municipal projects with geospatial modeling, health risk mapping, or sustainability planning.
• Co-develop open data platforms that bring together public health data, environmental monitoring, land use, and infrastructure systems.
• Embed geographers in interdisciplinary planning teams within urban design firms, public agencies, and NGOs.
• Incentivize knowledge translation, encouraging academics to publish not only in peer-reviewed outlets but also in formats digestible by policymakers, planners, and engineers.

Through these approaches, we transform geographic knowledge into actionable intelligence for healthier cities.

The Role of Data Collaboration: Optimism over Obstacles

It’s true that data limitations exist, especially in the Global South, where political sensitivities or institutional gaps can impede access. But rather than accepting these barriers, we should see them as challenges to overcome through professional solidarity and innovative collaboration. Emerging models such as data cooperatives, public-private academic partnerships, and community mapping projects (e.g., Humanitarian OpenStreetMap) demonstrate how diverse stakeholders can pool geospatial data to fill critical gaps.

Data availability and collaboration challenges are not exclusive to the Global South, they also exist in the Global North, though in different forms. In wealthier contexts, issues often revolve around data fragmentation, siloed institutional access, and proprietary restrictions by private firms. Despite robust infrastructure, academic research, and AEC professionals in the Global North still face hurdles in sharing and integrating geospatial data for public benefit. Collaborative initiatives, but the need for stronger academic-practitioner synergy remains. The opportunity to blend research with practice to improve public health through spatial insights is global. AEC professionals can enhance this effort by sharing non-sensitive spatial data collected during design or construction phases, site assessments, building footprints, and environmental impact data back into public or academic domains. Meanwhile, universities and research institutes can act as neutral custodians of data, improving transparency and trust.

Everyone Has a Geographic Role

No matter their specialization–transport geographers, medical geographers, climate modelers, or remote sensing analysts–every geographer works with “place” as a foundational concept. And every AEC professional works in a place, whether designing a water pipeline, planning a hospital, or modeling a transportation network.

This shared concern with space and place is the starting point for collaboration.

We must redefine geography not only as a field of academic inquiry but as an action-oriented discipline embedded in urban development processes. Geography, through its emphasis on scale, systems, and connections, offers a language to unify the fragmented efforts of planners, builders, public health experts, and citizens.

By foregrounding geospatial data and geographical expertise, we can help cities evolve not just in form, but in function, as ecosystems of wellbeing.

Conclusion: Toward a Healthy Urban Future

As a multidisciplinary expert, I stand at the intersection where physical space meets digital insight. I’ve witnessed firsthand how each role contributes a vital piece to the urban puzzle, from capturing accurate terrain models with GPS/drones to analyzing social disparities with spatial data. What’s clear is that no single discipline holds the key to building sustainable, healthy cities. It is only through intentional collaboration between academic researchers and built environment professionals that we can truly unlock the power of location-based data.

Geospatial data is not just about maps, it’s about meaning. When survey data informs urban models, when drone imagery validates land cover changes, and when GIS connects these insights to public health indicators, we move beyond design toward decision-making for human well-being. Geography isn’t just a field; it’s a framework. It equips us to see connections, understand patterns, and act across scales.

The future of our cities depends on breaking down silos, sharing data openly, and applying geographic thinking across professions. It’s time we all, academics and practitioners alike, step up as co-creators of healthier, more equitable urban spaces. After all, everything happens somewhere. And where it happens matters. “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.”

This article is based on the author’s presentation on urban oases during AAG 2025 in Detroit.  

Perspectives is a column intended to give AAG members an opportunity to share ideas relevant to the practice of geography. If you have an idea for a Perspective, see our guidelines for more information.