Is green space associated with reduced crime? A national-scale study from the Global South

Venter, Zander S.; Shackleton, Charlie M.; Faull, Andrew; Lancaster, Lizette; Breetzke, Gregory Dennis; Edelstein, Ian

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154005

Cited by 47 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…UGS promotes social communications and interactions and provides venues for informal meetings and group activities. UGS can encourage social gatherings and surveillance to reduce violent and property crimes [ 43 , 87 ]. Human contact with greenery can depress the likelihood of personal aggression and violence to bring harmony within and beyond family units.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…UGS can also provide many other important social benefits. They include: (1) improving people’s perception of quality of life [ 38 ]; (2) providing meeting places for group activities, such as conversation, group exercise, and picnics, thereby encouraging residents to conduct social exchanges, promote neighborhood relations, and improve community cohesion [ 39 , 40 ]; (3) reducing personal aggression and violent behaviors, and providing sites and situations that are amenable to social surveillance to suppress violent and property crimes [ 41 , 42 , 43 ]; (4) symbolizing history, culture, beliefs, and collective memory through the medium of the community’s heritage trees [ 44 , 45 ]; (5) creating and strengthening the positive image and local characteristics of the whole city, providing more attractive and livable places, establishing a green city brand to attract talent, tourism, and investment, and bringing sustainable benefits in environmental, social, and cultural realms [ 46 , 47 ].…”

Section: Introduction and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Self-Rated Health Status on Residents’ Social-Benefit Perceptions of Urban Green Space

Tian

Liu

Jim

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Urban green spaces (UGS) provide many social benefits and improves residents’ wellbeing. Studying residents’ perceptions of UGS’s social benefits and driving factors could promote public health and environmental justice. A questionnaire survey of 432 Beijing residents and statistical tests assessed the impacts of residents’ living environments and self-rated health status on UGS perceptions. The results showed: (1) perceptions of UGS’ physical health benefits were subdued, with an inclination towards other social benefits. Respondents more highly perceived accelerating patient recovery and reducing morbidity and mortality rates. Perceptions of bearing larger-head babies with higher weight were relatively low. For other social benefits, perceptions of improving the environment and life quality were higher, but reducing anger outbursts and resolving conflicts were lower. (2) Childhood living environments did not affect perceptions of social benefits, but current living environments did. Suburb residents understood reducing pain-relief medication demands and bearing larger-head babies better than city residents. City residents understood UGS’ investments considerable and sustained returns better than village residents. City residents agreed with accelerating patient recovery higher than village ones. (3) Respondents with “poor” self-rated health status had better perceptions of other social benefits. Those with “excellent” ratings did not fully understand UGS’ physical health benefits. “Poor” ratings understood improving a city’s image and making cities livable and sustainable better than “good” or “fair” ratings. “Excellent” ratings had less understanding of larger-head babies than “good” or “fair” ratings. The study could enhance appreciation of UGS’ social benefits to facilitate planning and management to meet residents’ expectations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Self-Rated Health Status on Residents’ Social-Benefit Perceptions of Urban Green Space

Tian

Liu

Jim

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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“…The value provides detail for the key-specified feature (i.e., park vs. playground, both of which are used for leisure). Tags used in past research on park cover and green space measures vary but can include leisure=park, leisure=garden, landuse=grass (Ludwig, Fendrich, et al, 2021); landuse=village_green, and landuse=cemetery (Ludwig, Hecht, et al, 2021); playground and protected_area (Venter et al, 2022); dog park and flower bed (Kraemer & Kabisch, 2021); and allotment, farmland/farmyard, forest/wood, greenfield, greenhouse, meadow, nature reserve, orchard, plant nursery, scrub, village green, and wetland (Zhou et al, 2021). Golf courses have been excluded from some green space analyses (Williams et al, 2020).…”

Section: -2022mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sum of areas within regions may not total the nationwide statistics in cases of polygons extending beyond the terrestrial area of the U.S. and polygons overlapping regions. OSM tags included dog_park, garden, nature_reserve, and park for the leisure key and national_park and protected_area for the boundary key based on past research utilizing OSM for park cover (Kraemer & Kabisch, 2021;Ludwig, Fendrich, et al, 2021;Ludwig, Hecht, et al, 2021;Venter et al, 2022;Williams et al, 2020;Zhou et al, 2021). PAD-US-AR values differs from Figure 1 because those values were intended to show the number of units/aerial cover lost at each stage of curation while these values were intended to compare park datasets and report results after dissolving park polygons.…”

Section: Comparison Of the Pad-us-ar To Other Park Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Curation of new green space indicator for the U.S.: Accessible & recreational park cover (PAD-US-AR)

Browning¹,

Rigolon²,

Ogletree³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Most spatial epidemiological studies of nature-health relationships use generalized green space measures. For instance, the normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) is prominent despite its criticisms, such as its inability to differentiate more public (accessible) vs. private (largely inaccessible) land. Green space’s capacity to improve health includes building capacities for health-promoting behaviors (e.g., physical activity). Such behaviors may be best activated by recreational and accessible parks. We curated the Parks and Protected Areas Database of the U.S. (PAD-US) to identify parks that are accessible for outdoor recreation. Our title adds “AR” to “PAD-US” where A=Accessible and R=Recreational. We validated the PAD-US-AR by comparisons with other datasets and demonstrated its uniqueness from other metrics through correlational analyses.The PAD-US-AR presents a reliable estimate for exposure to parks accessible for outdoor recreation. It has strong associations with home prices, shares of female residents, and shares of older residents, which should be considered as covariates/confounders. The dataset can be a companion to other green space metrics in environmental epidemiology and allied fields of research.

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“…Due to the limitation of scale, the influence range of a rural micro-landscape is small, so the people who use it are nearby residents who are familiar with their environment, and most of the users know each other well. This familiarity provides them with a high perception of safety in the micro-landscape [62,63], so the "sense of security" did not significantly influence the social benefits.…”

Section: Subjective Factors Affecting the Realization Of Social Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Benefits Evaluation of Rural Micro-Landscapes in Southeastern Coastal Towns of China—The Case of Jinjiang, Fujian

Shen

Lan

et al. 2022

Sustainability

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Faced with the current situation of the decay and alienation of traditional public space and the broken and disorderly spatial structure caused by the rapid urbanization of the Chinese countryside, rural micro-landscape creation has become an effective way to improve human living environments. However, it is currently difficult for rural micro-landscape construction to achieve the sustainable development of social benefits due to the lack of scientific design guidelines. Evaluating the social benefits of completed projects and identifying the important influencing factors are key to realizing the evidence-based design of rural micro-landscapes. To this end, this study deduces the mechanism of social benefit generation based on the psychological process of spatial perception and establishes a structural equation model containing compound influence pathways to measure the social benefits of micro-landscapes. The evaluation model consists of four latent variables, “physical element characteristics”, “perceptual quality”, “cognitive experience”, and “activity behavior”, and 35 observed variables. The researchers selected 18 micro-landscape areas in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, China, as the survey sample and analyzed the influence of the potential variables and the explanatory power of the observed variables through a quantitative analysis of objective environmental elements and perception data from 102 respondents. The results showed that “perceptual quality” and “cognitive experience” had the greatest direct effect on social benefits, and, based on the progressive influence relationships among the dimensions, “physical element characteristics” dominated the total social benefits through direct and indirect means. Compared with single-function green space, comfortable and diverse artificial facilities encourage residents to enter and use micro-landscapes and contribute to their social benefits. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ideal form of rural micro-landscape creation and provide a theoretical basis for the future practice of high-quality and sustainable rural micro-landscape construction.

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Is green space associated with reduced crime? A national-scale study from the Global South

Cited by 47 publications

References 51 publications

Effects of Self-Rated Health Status on Residents’ Social-Benefit Perceptions of Urban Green Space

Effects of Self-Rated Health Status on Residents’ Social-Benefit Perceptions of Urban Green Space

Curation of new green space indicator for the U.S.: Accessible & recreational park cover (PAD-US-AR)

Social Benefits Evaluation of Rural Micro-Landscapes in Southeastern Coastal Towns of China—The Case of Jinjiang, Fujian

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Is green space associated with reduced crime? A national-scale study from the Global South

Cited by 47 publications

References 51 publications

Effects of Self-Rated Health Status on Residents’ Social-Benefit Perceptions of Urban Green Space

Effects of Self-Rated Health Status on Residents’ Social-Benefit Perceptions of Urban Green Space

Curation of new green space indicator for the U.S.: Accessible &amp; recreational park cover (PAD-US-AR)

Social Benefits Evaluation of Rural Micro-Landscapes in Southeastern Coastal Towns of China—The Case of Jinjiang, Fujian

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Curation of new green space indicator for the U.S.: Accessible & recreational park cover (PAD-US-AR)