In 1986, in response to the World Health Organization challenge, eleven cities were selected to prove that the new approaches to public health defended on the "Health For All Targets" would work if put into practice. The global Healthy Cities movement was born from this initiative. During the 1991 World Health Assembly, the technical debates considered the Healthy Cities program as a way of dealing with the urban health programs, both in industrialized and in developing countries. From then on the first phase of the Healthy Cities Project was launched along with the establishment of a European Network.