In the minds of many people, urban areas and natural landscapes are considered to be mutually exclusive opposites. For city dwellers to experience nature, they have to leave the cities behind them and make a trek out to the country. But it is now becoming apparent that not only is it possible to have urban landscapes that afford people who live there a chance to experience nature directly, but that such experiences are in fact highly beneficial to those people’s health and the quality of the community’s life together.
In a new paper, City Wildlife board member John Hadidian, an urban biologist, introduces us to some of the most exciting and promising research. Here is a quote from the introduction:
“ The idea that physical and mental health can be made better through contact with natural environments is not new, but recent studies are providing a broader perspective and better empirical understanding of what this means as they bring new relevance to this concept. For people living in cities this may be especially timely, given the “extraordinary disengagement” from nature attributed to urban living. An emerging paradigm of “people and nature” in conservation biology gives further weight to a connection between urban nature, health and well-being that can be mediated through urban policy, planning, and social justice initiatives.”
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