Giving People More Green Space

Excerpt

The Latin word urbs gives us both “urban” and “urbane” presumably because, for some curious reason, city life used to be associated with refinement. That was not true of ancient Rome and hardly seems appropriate for any city today so when a team from the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research writes about “urbanity” we should not be surprised to find that they are referring to the number of households per square km rather than polished manners.1 “Urbanicity”is preferred by others.2 Maas et al., working in the very overcrowded Netherlands, have been looking at the notion of “environmental injustice” whereby socioeconomic factors and urban planning combine to deprive many city dwellers of access to green space.1 This study is the first bit of a 4-year three-part program, due to finish at the end of 2008, called Vitamin G (G for green).3 The next two will look at mechanisms other than stress reduction as possible explanations for the health benefits of local or accessible green space, such as physical activity and social cohesion, and at the effects on wellbeing of allotments, parcels of land commonly made available for rental in several parts of Europe for those who have no gardens of their own or only very small ones. …