A crisis in mental health, especially in economically deprived neighbourhoods, can present a significant barrier to successful urban regeneration projects. It follows that urban regeneration not only has a stake in promoting mental health care generally but, through its place making influence on physical and social structures, has a more direct responsibility to address poor mental health and sustain well-being where it exists. In support of a psychologically informed urban regeneration, this Special Issue sets out the case for a systematised intellectual and practice-based discipline and movement: an urban psychology, with an explicit therapeutic mission. It incorporates 10 articles delivered initially at Europe’s first urban psychology summit — City, Psychology, Place — held at the University of Liverpool in London campus in June 2019. In this editorial introduction, we reflect upon the need for an urban psychology at this historical juncture and offer our views on the work which such a body of practical knowledge might do to improve regeneration and renewal outcomes. We conclude that there can be no enduring economic, social or physical regeneration of distressed, failing or failed communities unless there is first ‘regeneration in support of life itself’ (RISLI)