Large scale and rapid urbanization processes call for a better quality of urban planning to support human well-being. While compact cities aim to reduce land consumption, densification puts pressure on the remaining green areas, influencing ecosystem services provision and ultimately the life quality of the growing urban population. Supply of and demand for urban ecosystem services differ however greatly across the globe. In this study, we derive a set of urban typologies and their related ecosystem services bundles in both a temperate and a tropical city. We show that the supply of urban ecosystem services does not increase linearly with green area coverage, but is highly dependent on the urban form. While the surface sealed by infrastructures and the buildings themselves play a key role in influencing ecosystem services provision, we observe that the share of trees is particularly important for supporting regulating ecosystem services in built up neighborhoods. With a similar average surface-to-volume ratio, open midrise neighborhoods in Singapore provide more water flow regulation and air pollution control services than the same urban typology in Zurich. Microclimate regulation, in contrast, does not seem to be dependent on the context, but more on the amount of built up surface. Interestingly, we observe that open midrise neighborhoods synergistically support the supply of many regulating services in both case study areas, including microclimate regulation, water flow regulation and air pollution control. Large water and forest patches are unquestionably essential in both Singapore and Zurich to support bundles of ecosystem services, particularly also for recreational activities. Using open data, the approach can be transferred to other cities and support decision makers in their efforts to plan the sustainable development of cities across the world.
Urban expansion is generating unprecedented homogenization of landscapes across the world. This uniformization of urban forms brings along dramatic environmental, social, and health problems. Reverting such processes requires activating people’s sense of place, their feeling of caring for their surroundings, and their community engagement. While emotions are known to have a modulating effect on behavior, their role in urban transformation is unknown. Drawing on large cognitive-psychological experiments in two countries, we demonstrate for the first time that urban homogenization processes lower people’s affective bounds to places and ultimately their intentions to engage with their neighbourhoods. The dulled emotional responses in peri-urban areas compared to urban and rural areas can be explained by lower social cohesion and place attachment. The findings highlight the significance of considering emotions in shaping just, equitable, sustainable, and resilient cities.
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