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Open Access Resources

We provide training and technical support for city teams to participate in the 1000 Cities Challenge. The Global Observatory aims to include the whole metropolitan area of cities, wherever possible. However, our indicator tools can be applied to any size or type of urban area (e.g. whole metropolitan areas, sub-areas within a larger metropolitan area), as relevant for your city. We expect that the 1000 Cities Challenge tools and procedures will evolve over time, to best support city teams to assess indicators for their city.

Follow these steps to learn and use our tools:

  1. Review the webinars
  2. Download and install the tools
  3. Review the training videos
  4. Go back to the tools website to run the software
Access to all of the 1000 Cities Challenge Trainings
Access our policy and spatial indicator development software and tools

Webinars

Learn about the indicators and how to use our tools for your city.

Training videos

Access our step-by-step trainings

Policy Indicators

Spatial Indicators

Our Tools

How to get started?

Attend or watch an information and/or training session

1

Download the Policy Checklist

Download here

2

Develop a policy data collection plan.

  • Identify who will collect the data

3

Identify relevant policy documents

4

Fill in the Policy Checklist

5

Validate your Checklist results with assistance from the 1000 Cities Challenge team

6

Upload the Checklist to the 1000 Cities Challenge software or contact info@healthysustainablecities.org for support

7

Generate and check the Scorecard and Report

8

Submit your city’s finalised Scorecard and/or Report to info@healthysustainablecities.org, for upload to the Global Observatory website.

1

Download the Global Healthy & Sustainable City Indicators software

Access our software

2

Develop a policy data collection plan

3

Identify and obtain spatial data for your city

4

Follow the steps to configure your city region and analyze your data

5

Generate the outputs and reports

6

Validate data and reports with assistance from the 1000 Cities Challenge team

7

Submit your city’s finalised Scorecard and/or Report to info@healthysustainablecities.org, for upload to the Global Observatory website.

For further assistance contact info@healthysustainablecities.org or access our Frequently Asked Questions page

Data hub

Access the data for the cities showcased on our website

Additional resources

2022 The Lancet Global Health Series on Urban Design, Transport and Health

Liu, S., Higgs, C., Arundel, J., Boeing, G., Cerdera, N., Moctezuma, D., Cerin, E., Adlakha, D., Lowe, M. Giles-Corti, B. (2021). A Generalized Framework for Measuring Pedestrian Accessibility around the World Using Open Data. Geographical Analysis.
 https://doi.org/10.1111/gean.12290 (Published journal version)
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.08814.pdf (Open access preprint)

Global Healthy and Sustainable City Indicator Study Collaboration – 25 Cities spatial indicators datasets: https://rmit.figshare.com/articles/dataset/Global_Healthy_and_
Sustainable_City_Indicator_Study_Collaboration_-_25_Cities_spatial_indicators_datasets/15072009

Open source code for generating spatial city planning indicators: https://github.com/global-healthy-liveable-cities/global-indicators

    Thank you for your interest in our indicator tools. We would like to understand who is using our tools for calculating indicators and provide support for cities to join the 1000 Cities Challenge.

    For this purpose, please provide the following information to proceed to the policy and spatial indicator tools and instructions:


    10

    Plan periodic reassessments to monitor progress

    Your team can continue to work together to advocate for progress and serve as a resource for city leaders.

    Repeating the calculation of indicators every few years provides occasions to celebrate progress, identify continuing, and update goals.

    9

    Present results to city leaders & build consensus for an improvement plan

    You are now ready to organize one or more meetings or events to present results to city leaders and encourage their use in setting goals to improve policies and environments in your cities.

    It is useful to have people from multiple sectors involved in the presentations.There are recordings of local events in which indicators are presented to city leaders on the website.

    8

    Submit your data, Scorecard, and Report for inclusion on the Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities website

    Send your city’s finalised Scorecard and/or Report to info@healthysustainablecities.org, for upload to the Global Observatorywebsite.

    Your city will officially be included in the 1000 Cities Challenge, and city teams will become part of our Global Healthy and Sustainable City-Indicators Collaboration.

    7

    Compute spatial and policy indicators using the Global Healthy & Sustainable City Indicators (GHSCI) Software

    Check your data and indicator results to ensure they are as accurate as possible. Validation checklists and the Global Observatory team will assist with validation.

    Please contact our team for support: info@healthysustainablecities.org

    6

    Compute spatial and policy indicators using the Global Healthy & Sustainable City Indicators (GHSCI) Software

    Use the GHSCI Software to:

    • Configure and analyze spatial data
    • Upload the Policy Checklist for analysis
    • Generate indicator outputs (e.g., maps, summary reports for validation and comparison)
    • Please contact our team if you require support using the GHSCI Software

    Policy indicators include:

    Metropolitan transport policy with health-focused actions

    Air pollution policies for transport and land-use planning

    Requirements for public transport access to employment and services

    Employment distribution requirements

    Parking restrictions to discourage car use

    Minimum public open space access requirements

    Street connectivity requirements

    Provision of pedestrian infrastructure and targets for walking participation

    Provision of cycling infrastructure and targets for cycling participation

    Housing density requirements

    Minimum requirements for public transport access and targets for public transport use

    Publicly available information on government expenditure for different transport modes

    Spatial indicators include:

    Population with access to fresh food market or supermarket

    Population living in neighbourhoods above minimum density threshold for WHO physical activity target

    Population with access to regularly running formal public transport (<20 mins)

    Population living in neighbourhoods above the median walkability across cities

    Population living in neighbourhoods above minimum connectivity threshold for WHO physical activity target

    Population with access to any public open space

    5

    Collect data

    Policy data

    1. Identify the relevant level(s) of government for your analysis, and the government sectors responsible for the policy areas covered in the Policy Checklist.
    2. Conduct a search of government or public websites and repositories to identify relevant policy documents.
    3. Find and enter relevant policy details into the 1000 Cities Challenge Policy Checklist.

    Spatial data

    1. Confirm the existence of the required spatial data.
    2. Download data for analysis of your urban area.
    DataPurposeRequired
    OpenStreetMapOpenStreetMap .pbf file with coverage of the region (and time) of interest; this could be an historical planet file, or a region-specific excerptYes
    Population GridsPopulation distribution raster grid or vector data with coverage of urban region of interest. GHS population grid (R2023) is recommendedYes
    Region BoundaryVector boundary for identifying study region (e.g. geopackage, geojson or shp).Conditional
    Urban RegionGlobal Human Settlements Layer Urban Centres database and/or administrative boundary for urban region of interestConditional
    Transit FeedsCollections of zipped GTFS feeds to represent public transport service frequencyNo
    OtherOther custom data, such as points of interestNo

    Further information and guidance on how to collect policy and spatial data is available on the Global Observatory website, Resources tab

    4

    Seek advice from country/regional mentor

    The Global Observatory team, including country/regional coordinators can act as mentors or guides and will be able to answer questions related to the data collection plan, policy and spatial indicators computation, and generation of the Scorecard and Report.

    3

    Generate a Data Collection and Analysis Plan

    • Download and familiarize yourself with the Policy Checklist.
    • Review the steps for the Indicators Software available from the Global Observatory website, Resources tab.
    • Develop a policy data collection plan and identify who will collect the data.

    2

    Attend or watch an information and/or training session