Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back each week for new roundups and items.
Study: Green Space Means More for Satisfaction Than a Neighborhood’s Average Income
As we’ve seen again and again, people are generally happier when they have access to grass, trees, and flowers. In terms of the many other things required to have a satisfying life in urban settings, how important is living near parks and gardens?…In relative terms, living in a greener area was associated with mental health gains about 35 percent as significant as those one gets from being married. It was 12 percent as beneficial to mental health as employed. In terms of “life satisfaction,” the effect was equal to 28 percent that of being married and 21 percent that of being employed.
There Are Few Trees in Louisville, America’s Fastest Warming City
What’s the scariest weather event you can think of? A hurricane? Tornado? Storm surge? None of these is as deadly as heat. An average of 400 people, most of them elderly and living in urban areas, die each year in the U.S. from the effects of heat waves…Brian Stone of the Urban Climate Lab at Georgia Tech is studying the way cities are getting warmer and how we can mitigate this trend in order to save lives…Last year, he and his colleagues released an analysis of data from the 50 largest cities in America. And it came as something of a surprise that Louisville, Ky. had the unhappy distinction of being on top.
Outdoor Environments at Three Nursing Homes-qualitative Interviews with Residents and Next of Kin
The present study aimed at describing older persons’ experiences of outdoor environments at nursing homes in Sweden in terms of what factors are important and in what way they are important…The results are intended to facilitate practical knowledge that is useful to planners, decision-makers and care workers striving to create attractive and useable environments that are part of the daily life of nursing home residents. The themes also exemplify how the outdoor environment at nursing homes can serve as a resource in promoting restoration, a feeling of being at home and positive development late in life.
The Healing Power of Nature
Ask yourself this question: Do you or your kids suffer from Nature-Deficit Disorder? This wonderful name was coined by journalist Richard Louv with the publication of Last Child in the Woods. His newest book, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder, offers a new vision of the future, in which our lives are equally immersed in nature and in technology.
