Perceptions and Preferences of Urban Greenspaces: A Literature Review and Framework for Policy and Practice

Farahani, Leila Mahmoudi

doi:10.3097/lo.201861

Cited by 31 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 80 publications

(32 reference statements)

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“…The main inspiration in the urban regeneration of the urban spaces or degraded areas is the realization of green areas, as they are now widely recognized and documented in guaranteeing ecosystem services useful for the wellbeing of the population [62][63][64][65]. Indeed, the type of urban space use was the main focus of the conflict between some decision-makers: implementation of the university urban center vs. green areas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bottom-Up and Top-Down Participatory Approach to Planning and Designing Local Urban Development: Evidence from an Urban University Center

Semeraro

Zaccarelli

Lara

et al. 2020

Land

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The urban area is characterized by different urban ecosystems that interact with different institutional levels, including different stakeholders and decision-makers, such as public administrations and governments. This can create many institutional conflicts in planning and designing the urban space. It would arguably be ideal for an urban area to be planned like a socio-ecological system where the urban ecosystem and institutional levels interact with each other in a multi-scale analysis. This work embraces a planning process that aims at being applied to a multi-institutional level approach that is able to match different visions and stakeholders' needs, combining bottom-up and top-down participation approaches. At the urban scale, the use of this approach is sometimes criticized because it appears to increase conflicts between the different stakeholders. Starting from a case study in the Municipality of Lecce, South Italy, we apply a top-down and bottom-up participation approach to overcome conflicts at the institutional levels in the use of the urban space in the Plan of the Urban University Center. The bottom-up participation action analyzes the vision of people that frequent the urban context. After that, we share this vision in direct comparison with decision-makers to develop the planning and design solutions. The final result is a draft of the hypothetical Plan of the Urban University Center. In this way, the bottom-up and top-down approaches are useful to match the need of the community that uses the area with the vision of urban space development of decision-makers, reducing the conflicts that can arise between different institutional levels. In this study, it also emerges that the urban question is not green areas vs. new buildings, but it is important to focus on the social use of the space to develop human well-being. With the right transition of information and knowledge between different institutional levels, the bottom-up and top-down approaches help develop an operative effective transdisciplinary urban plan and design. Therefore, public participation with bottom-up and top-down approaches is not a tool to obtain maximum consensus, but mainly a moment of confrontation to better address social issues in urban planning and design.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bottom-Up and Top-Down Participatory Approach to Planning and Designing Local Urban Development: Evidence from an Urban University Center

Semeraro

Zaccarelli

Lara

et al. 2020

Land

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“…There is increasing need among urban dwellers for the creation of healthier and more sustainable cities; ecologists, designers, building, and city managers should operate in synergy with stakeholders to update and improve the way we conceive the needs of modern human agglomerations (McDonnell and MacGregor-Fors, 2016). Under this perspective, urban residents are encouraged to interact with and to utilize public green spaces and to experience different benefits derived by green environments (Mahmoudi Farahani and Maller, 2018).…”

Section: Ecological Planning Of Urban Green Spaces and Novel Green Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey of Multiple Interactions Between Plants and the Urban Environment

Fineschi¹,

Loreto²

2020

Front. For. Glob. Change

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It is well-acknowledged that plants in urban areas provide multiple ecosystem services. They contribute improving ambient quality and mitigating negative impacts of human presence, beautifying the anthropic environment, and promoting place identity and cultural heritage. However, the existence of plants in general, and trees in particular, cannot be considered independent on urban activities and infrastructures. Release of plant volatile compounds is profoundly affected in urban environments, in turn modifying plant relationships with other living organisms, both plants and animals, and affecting air chemistry and quality. Plants also interfere with stone artifacts, cultural and historical heritage. Plant-human coexistence requires precise and adequate managing measures, which have often been ignored in cities' government and planning. Plants and humans (and human infrastructures) are frequently considered as independent from each other and plant requirements are often disregarded, thus causing difficult or erroneous management and/or environmental damage. We review some of the most important ecosystem services provided by plants in urban environment, and also focus on possible negative effects of plants that may become relevant if urban vegetation is improperly managed and unintegrated in proper city planning, both of historical centers and of new towns or suburbs. Keywords: ecosystem services, global change, green area typologies in cities, green urban planning and management, positive (negative) plant-human interactions, urban trees

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“…There are also studies in which no statistically significant relationship between vegetation density and preference was found [57]. In addition, most studies on the effects of plant forms on preference have been conducted in Europe and the USA [58]. Therefore, it is unclear whether the results of previous studies extend to individuals who live in different countries and are from different cultural backgrounds [45].…”

Section: Safety-related Environmental Characteristics and Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Vegetation on Perceived Safety and Preference in City Parks

Lis

Pardela

Iwankowski³

2019

Sustainability

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The aim of this study was to determine the impact of safety-related environmental characteristics in a city park on users’ preferences and whether this impact can be explained by perceived safety. The factors examined were physical and visual accessibility as well as the effectiveness of concealment created by plants in various spatial systems. We used 112 photographs taken in city parks for the study. Studies have shown that visual and physical accessibility varies in terms of impact on preferences and safety—as a result, we tested only visual accessibility and effectiveness. Correlation and regression analyses confirmed that vegetation in a park that obstructs views and can offer concealment reduces our sense of safety. In addition, such vegetation has a negative effect on preference. However, mediation analysis showed that this sense of safety or danger means that dense vegetation (low visual accessibility yet highly effective in offering concealment) is less preferred as a landscape feature. After excluding the impact brought to bear by the sense of safety, the studied features of vegetation had no significant impact on preferences. This means that plants and vegetation layouts of varying densities can be used in completely safe parks and this will probably not adversely affect the feelings of the users.

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Perceptions and Preferences of Urban Greenspaces: A Literature Review and Framework for Policy and Practice

Cited by 31 publications

References 80 publications

A Bottom-Up and Top-Down Participatory Approach to Planning and Designing Local Urban Development: Evidence from an Urban University Center

A Bottom-Up and Top-Down Participatory Approach to Planning and Designing Local Urban Development: Evidence from an Urban University Center

A Survey of Multiple Interactions Between Plants and the Urban Environment

Impact of Vegetation on Perceived Safety and Preference in City Parks

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