Public Greenspace and Life Satisfaction in Urban Australia

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of public greenspace on the life satisfaction of residents of Australia's capital cities. A positive relationship is found between the percentage of public greenspace in a resident's local area and their self-reported life satisfaction. On average, it is found that a resident has an implicit willingness-to-pay of $1,168 in annual household income for a one per cent (143m 2) increase in public greenspace. The relationship between public greenspace and life satisfaction however, is non-linear. Additional results suggest that the value of greenspace increases with population density and that lone parents, the less educated and those living in high rise dwellings benefit to a greater extent from the provision of public greenspace than the general population. In all, life satisfaction data supports existing evidence that public greenspace is welfare enhancing for urban residents and adequate allowance should be made for its provision when planning urban areas.

The role of urban green space for human well-being

“…Using wave 5 of the HILDA survey, Ambrey and Fleming (2013) investigate the role of public green space for the well-being of people in major Australian cities. The green space measure they use is the percentage of public green space in the resident's collection district.…”

“…Individuals with higher preferences for urban green space and parks might move to greener areas of the city. As Ambrey and Fleming (2013) note, however, the evidence seems to be mixed, and several authors find that this selection bias is rather small (e.g., Chay and Greenstone, 2005 show the inverted U-shaped effect of urban green space on life satisfaction that is significant at the 1% level. This may be an indicator that the effect of urban green space expands beyond an effect of pure self-selection, even if the results have to be interpreted carefully due to changes in sample size.…”

“…5 The two existing economic studies analyzing the effect of urban green on life satisfaction cover cities in Australia (Ambrey and Fleming, 2013) and China (Smyth et al, 2008). Unlike Ambrey and Fleming (2013) and Smyth et al (2008), we use an individual green space measure that captures the area of green space surrounding a respondent's home. We further add to this literature by exploring and comparing different ways in which urban green might affect the well-being of city inhabitants.…”

“…The indicators for a park view and the number of park visits are based on self-reports derived from our 9 The collection district is the smallest spatial unit in the Australian Standard Geographical Classification. Assuming each collection district takes the shape of a circle, the median radius from the centroid is approximately 750m (Ambrey and Fleming, 2013). 10 Total net monthly individual income was calculated by dividing the corresponding household income by the weighted number of household members according to the OECD-modified equivalence scale (OECD, 2009 survey.…”

Nature-Based Solutions Accelerating Urban Sustainability Transitions in Cities: Lessons from Dresden, Genk and Stockholm Cities

“…Nature-based solutions as social-spatial interventions have a transformative impact in the relations between people and nature. First, nature-based solutions contribute in the mental and physical health and wellbeing of people in cities (Andersson et al 2015;Ambrey andFleming 2014, p. 1298;Bratman et al 2015;Buchel and Frantzeskaki 2015;Carrus et al 2015). Reconnecting with nature in cities can contribute to social ties, establishment of sense of community and social cohesion (Kazmierczak 2013).…”