Abstract
Urban green space is thought to contribute to citizen happiness by promoting physical and mental health. Nevertheless, how urban green space and happiness are related across many countries with different socioeconomic conditions has not been explored. By measuring the urban green space score (UGS) from high-resolution satellite imagery of 90 global cities covering 179,168 km2 and 230 million people in 60 developed countries, we find that the amount of urban green space and GDP are correlated with a nation’s happiness level. More specifically, urban green space and GDP are each individually associated with happiness. Yet, only urban green space is related to happiness in the 30 wealthiest countries, whereas GDP alone can explain happiness in the subsequent 30 countries in terms of wealth. We further show that the relationship between urban green space and happiness is mediated by social support and that GDP moderates this relationship. These findings corroborate the importance of maintaining urban green space as a place for social cohesion to support people’s happiness.
Highlights
The advantages of urban green space for public health and urban planning have been of great interest in recent years
From the perspective that economic studies distinguish between emotional well-being and life satisfaction [25], we focus on the impact of green space on life satisfaction. We study this relationship in developed countries with the highest Human Development Index (HDI), where green environments in cities are considered more important for life satisfaction. Using these datasets from satellite imagery, we explore the relationship between urban green space and happiness globally
For the 30 higher-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) countries, happiness is associated only with the urban green space score (UGS) (7-9). These findings suggest that GDP is critical for happiness until it reaches a certain GDP threshold, after which urban green space better explains happiness
Summary
The advantages of urban green space for public health and urban planning have been of great interest in recent years. One example is utilizing the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), a vegetation index computed from Landsat series satellite images (30 m resolution) [10, 11, 18] Researchers such as Tsai et al [19] introduced multiple landscape metrics based on GIS and showed a strong association between green space and mental health in U.S metropolitan areas. The UGS based on the logarithmic NDVI per capita shows the best regression performance This relationship between the UGS and happiness is robust for the control variables, including life expectancy, health expenditure, unemployment, gender inequality, and education (see Additional file 1 for the results for the different measures). Qatar needs 0.4981 NDVI per capita or 7556 dollars per capita, and South Korea needs 4.1332 NDVI per capita or 2315 dollars per capita to achieve the reference happiness score increase
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
