The Topodiverse City: Urban Form for Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

Research is now better than ever able to unveil how urban inhabitants’ movement, behavior and experiences relate to the urban forms in which they take place. Consequently, urban form might increasingly be able to function as a focal point for different strands of research that focus on sustainable urban life, and as a link between research and planning practice through the development of empirically informed design principles. Drawing on literature from urban morphology, complex systems analysis, environmental psychology, and neuroscience, I provide a wide-angle view of how urban form relates to subjective well-being through movement, social and economic activity, experiences and psychological restoration. I propose three principles for urban form that could promote subjective well-being while also mitigating the environmental impact of cities in industrialized societies. The principles revolve around so-called topodiversity, meaning variation across an urban area in spatial conditions that allows subjective well-being to be promoted through several different pathways. The principles together suggest an urban form that I call the topodiverse city. The topodiverse city displays a polycentric structure and is more spatially contained than the sprawling city, yet not as compact as the dense city. I also propose indicators to measure the principles using mostly openly available data and analysis methods, to further research on how urban form can enable urban subjective well-being with low environmental impact.

Frontiers in Social–Ecological Urbanism

“…Crowding often causes stress [60], and, in some cities, the central areas contain many negative experiences related to stress [36]. To achieve sustainable urban form for social services and well-being is thus a balancing act of stimulating local activity without inducing crowding [61].…”

“…[58,62,63]). In this vein, Samuelsson [61] refers to the ability of neighborhood-scale urban form to function as a resource supporting subjective well-being in diverse ways as 'topodiversity'. Topodiversity is a systemic property of urban form emerging from street networks, the distribution of buildings, and presence of urban nature.…”

“…Topodiversity is a systemic property of urban form emerging from street networks, the distribution of buildings, and presence of urban nature. More specifically, topodiversity emerges when there is neighborhood-scale diversity in place-scale street network integration, building density, and the presence of nature while, at the same time, the extremes of sprawl, which does not support walking and biking, and high densities that induce crowding are avoided [61]. Topodiversity supports eye-level resilience by endowing inhabitants with the ability to escape a busy street and seek refuge in a park or go down to the local square to run errands while nurturing a sense of connection with the local community.…”

“…Experiencing nature is also a powerful antidote to stress in urban life [78] and can critically support well-being during crisis times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic [79]. Integrating ecosystems into urban design is thus a key strategy for enhancing topodiversity [61] and building eye-level resilience [36].…”

“…Organizing cities so that the morning walk to school or work promotes cognitive resilience building is a challenging future SEU research task in order to create more sustainable cities [47,82]. Mapping topodiversity in neighborhoods across cities [61] could serve this purpose by identifying key places for intervention in the spatial system where ecological retrofitting and redesign provide the greatest leverage for mitigating further ecological illiteracy among urban residents.…”