Residents’ Perception of Informal Green Space—A Case Study of Ichikawa City, Japan

Abstract

Urban green space (UGS) has been proven to be essential for improving the health of residents. Local governments thus need to provide attractive UGS to enhance residents’ wellbeing. However, cities face spatial and finanical limitations in creating and managing UGS. As a result, greening plans often fail or are postponed indefinitely. To evaluate whether informal urban green space (IGS) can supplement existing UGS, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 567 residents in Ichikawa (Japan), a city currently providing only 3.43 m2 green space per capita. In particular, we analyzed how residents’ existing green space activities affect IGS perception, as it may be difficult to recognize IGS as greenery because it is not an officially recognized space for recreation. Results show that residents took a favorable stance towards IGS, but perception differs depending on their green environment exposure. Residents who are frequently exposed to green environments in their daily lives highly recognized the environmental improvement aspects of IGS and significantly perceived spatial accessibility as an advantage of IGS. Willingness to participate in conservation activities of UGS was linked with a likelihood of recognizing IGS as UGS. Our results encourage understanding IGS as supplementary green space taking into account the attitude of residents to UGS, and contribute to introducing the IGS discourse into green space planning.

Perception of Urban Green Areas Associated with Sociodemographic Affiliation, Structural Elements, and Acceptance Stripes

“…Another explanation with respect to income was suggested by studies on environmental justice in cities (cf., [141]). Since low-income households are generally under-resourced in terms of green or even open spaces in their environment [23,77], urban green spaces are a crucial resource for these groups in terms of recreation and restorative effects [77]. Hence, the conservation of urban biodiversity plays an important role for the quality of life, in particular for marginalized individuals, and contributes to their social integration [77,142].…”

“…This approach can help to establish meadows in areas where no lawns or intensively managed green spaces are necessary for the population. In addition, unused spaces (bare or mown), such as courtyards, peripheral areas, flat roofs, tramways, transmission line rights-of-way, and even vertical structures (e.g., walls), can be designed in a more biodiversity-friendly fashion [3,23,90]. Other measures can enhance biodiversity, for instance, the use of seeds from a regional gene pool [90,172].…”

“…From a social point of view, urban green spaces offer facilities that can be used by city dwellers, e.g., as meeting points and places for relaxation and recreation [8,9,21]. In addition, they have multiple benefits (physiological and psychological) with respect to health and well-being (e.g., [7,8,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]).…”

Understanding Threats to Young Children’s Green Space Access in Unlicensed Daycare Centers in Japan

“…Local governments and planners should urgently address this issue through communicating with daycare centers to understand their needs, and by providing ample, diverse, high quality GS, including but not limited to parks. While this task may appear daunting given the extremely low provision in some cities (Table 2), and the anticipated increase in GS demand on top of the existing unmet needs, the demographic trajectory of Japanese cities trends towards depopulation and thus suggests there is potential for greening through proactively using vacant lots [55,61,62].…”

Special Issue: Landscape Urbanism and Green Infrastructure

“…Urban planners were informed on how to balance green space distribution within city neighborhoods, providing environmental justice without provoking green gentrification. Kim et al [9] examined the potential of informal green space as supplementary urban green space to meet the well-being needs of residents. They conducted a study on residents' perception in Ichikawa, Japan, a shrinking and aging city that is clearly deficient in urban green areas, currently providing only 3.43 m 2 of green space per capita.…”