Submit Manuscript

Article Menu

  • Research article

Residential Proximity Gradients in Urban Greenspace–Health Evidence: A Neutrality-Preserving Directional Synthesis

by
Richard Weller1
1Department of Landscape Architecture, Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, 119 Meyerson Hall, 210 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA19104-6311, USA
  • Submission received: 03/02/2022
  • Revised 17/07/2022
  • Accepted 19/11/2022
  • Published 30/12/2022
Download

Abstract

The decisions regarding urban greening should include the quantified estimate of the points where vegetation–health associations turn towards urbanization, what physical health outcomes have the most prominent direction, and whether the near-home vegetation is different from that outside one’s living environment. The proximity gradient, allowing for preserving neutrality in analysis, is constructed upon the heterogeneous data concerning urbanicity, greenspace, and physical health. The neutrality-preserving approach allows highlighting all three directions of finding: positive protective associations in more urban locations, no urbanicity differences, and positive protective associations in less urban locations. Directions, neutrality, smoothed dominance, and restriction by small groups give rise to the concrete urban signal. The numerical evidence includes 37 papers and 57 findings, including 22 findings favoring more urban areas, 29 neutral findings, and 6 findings favoring less urban areas. As a whole, the evidence base is mostly neutral; however, the directional subset shows very high levels of urban orientation, with 22 out of 28 non-neutral findings favoring more urban locations. Cardiovascular-related health outcomes demonstrate the highest values in outcome weighting, followed by mortality, birth outcomes, diabetes, cancer, respiratory-related conditions, and obesity-related disorders, while general physical well-being has a somewhat negative value. In terms of residential distance, the distance band at 500 m showed the greatest contribution to actionable value, whereas broader bands were either neutral or slightly less urban-oriented. Green landcover was shown to provide more actionable value than just public greenspace. Consequently, the interpretation is clear: considering neutrality in the total findings denominator, it is reasonable to prioritize urban greening at the residential scale.

Keywords: urban greenspace; residential proximity; physical health; urbanicity; effect modification; environmental planning; evidence synthesis
Copyright © 2022 Richard Weller. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.