The Role of Urban Green Space in Promoting Inclusion: Experiences From the Netherlands

Abstract

Urban Green Space (UGS) is considered to be beneficial for health and wellbeing of urban residents. But there is growing evidence that benefits are not equally distributed. In this article we aim to understand the role that UGS plays in the process of social exclusion and the role urban greening strategies can play in enhancing social equity for specific groups that are excluded: elderly people with dementia, people with mental issues and people from an underprivileged neighborhood. The concepts of inclusion and exclusion and their relation to UGS are discussed. Four exclusion mechanisms are distinguished based on the role of the physical and societal environment and on the role of actors involved (public or private). Further, we identify four discourses behind possible strategies and measures to promote inclusion. These mechanisms and discourses are confronted with an analysis of three cases promoting inclusion of elderly with dementia, people with mental health issues and people from an underprivileged neighborhood. Succesful inclusion strategies in these cases are based on alignment between private actors initiatives and public actions. The cases indicate that public and private actors need to cooperate better in order to make UGS part of inclusion strategies.

COVID-19 Changed Human-Nature Interactions across Green Space Types: Evidence of Change in Multiple Types of Activities from the West Bank, Palestine

“…During the pandemic, researchers have found that park use increased when parks were open [2,3,18,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] and residents reported that these spaces improved their mental health [38,40]. These spaces have long been known to provide humans with multiple ecosystem services in addition to wellness, including mental health [7,13,22], climate regulation [41], and cultural benefits [42].…”

Chapter 12: Urban architecture for well-being: a design canvas for inclusive green cities

“…Inclusive design is the ongoing process of designing solutions to accommodate the viewpoints, experiences, and situations of people that were not accommodated before (Levanier, 2021). In the cities of today, inclusion shares an intense relationship with its opposite term: exclusion (De Haas et al, 2021). Therefore, anyone working on inclusive green design will encounter obstacles of old designs that were based on exclusion from dated philosophies and ideologies.…”

“…In short: equality refers to equal measures, despite the outcome; equity refers to a fair outcome that does not have to be equal. For instance, for health reasons, an equity approach would promote measures such as green space, healthcare, and social work in deprived neighbourhoods, while an equality approach would provide each neighbourhood with the same number of measures (De Haas et al, 2021). Nonetheless, inclusive design requires both equitable and equal approaches.…”

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Urban Green Areas Using Change Detection: A Case Study of Kharkiv, Ukraine

“…A brief analysis of previous research demonstrates the considerable attention to studying the specific aspects of the green areas functioning. Much attention is paid to the study of certain aspects of sustainable urban development, including the planning structure of cities and the importance of recreational areas (Morar et al, 2016;Morar et al, 2019;Wolff and Haase, 2019;Snep et al, 2020;Morar et al, 2021a;Morar et al, 2021b;De Haas and Hassinkstuiver., 2021;Guenat et al, 2021;Rostang et al, 2021), implementation of the development strategies of Ukraine's regions ), and regional development on the whole (Niemets et al, 2019c). In particular, Barrera et al (2016) considered UGAs from the standpoint of the environmental framework of the territory.…”