The Case for Parks

Frederick Law Olmsted created green spaces for urban areas and influenced the essential shape of multiple cities, including Rochester. He created parks that respected natural site conditions and provided restorative public experiences, which he considered necessary for a healthy society. His landscapes influenced human activity and social values. Subsequent research has borne him out. 

Daily contact with nature can reduce mortality rates; studies have shown that these can be cut in half with greener neighborhoods.¹ Green space has been linked to mental health benefits such as recovery from mental fatigue and reduced stress.² Higher levels of neighborhood green space have also been associated with significantly lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress.³ Studies show that as little as 10 minutes of sitting or walking in a diverse array of natural settings significantly and positively impacts mental well-being for college-aged individuals.⁴ 

Studies of youth had shown that that children who play in “vegetated” outdoor spaces engage in more creative play than those who play outside in “barren” spaces.⁵ Being outside in a natural environment can improve memory performance and attention span by up to twenty percent,⁶ while attendance at schools or kindergartens in greener areas has been associated with lower odds of having attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms.⁷ 

Pocket parks play their part. Well-planned and managed green space in, for example, what were vacant lots, can increase a sense of safety and decrease crime rates,⁸ while trees in an urban setting make temperatures in cities more bearable. 

Green spaces and landscaping increase property values and financial returns for land developers, of between 5% and 15%, while using vegetation to reduce the energy costs of cooling buildings has been increasingly recognized as a cost-effective reason for increasing green space and tree planting in temperate climate cities.⁹ This is an issue that directly affects our city. Surface temperature in formerly redlined neighborhoods in Rochester are on average 8.82 degrees F. warmer than those in the city’s highest-rated and more tree’d ones.¹⁰

Visit the D&C feature by Justin Murphy, about trees, parks, and our city’s neighborhoods.

  1. Ming Kuo.” How might contact with nature promote human health? Promising mechanisms and a possible central pathway.”  Landscape and Human Health Laboratory, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA 

    Maas, J.; Verheij, R.A.; de Vries, S.; Spreeuwenberg, P.; Schellevis, F.G.; Groenewegen, P.P. “Morbidity is related to a green living environment.” J. Epidemiol. Community Health 2009, 63, 967–973. 

    De Vries, S.; Verheij, R.A.; Groenewegen, P.P.; Spreeuwenberg, P. “Natural environments-healthy environments? An exploratory analysis of the relationship between greenspace and health.” Environ. Plan. A 2003, 35, 1717–1732. 

    Van Dillen, S.M.; de Vries, S.; Groenewegen, P.P.; Spreeuwenberg, P. “Greenspace in urban neighbourhoods and residents’ health: Adding quality to quantity.” J. Epidemiol. Community Health 2012, 66, doi:10.1136/jech.2009.104695. 

    Bell, J.F.; Wilson, J.S.; Liu, G.C. “Neighborhood greenness and 2-year changes in body mass index of children and youth.” Amer. J. Prev. Med. 2008, 35, 547–553. 

    Bowler, D.E.; Buyung-Ali, L.M.; Knight, T.M.; Pullin, A.S. “A systematic review of evidence for the added benefits to health of exposure to natural environments.” BMC Public Health 2010, 10, 1–10. 

  2. Kirsten M. M. Beyer et al. (2014) “Exposure to Neighborhood Green Space and Mental Health: Evidence from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin,” in Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11, 3453-3472; doi:10.3390/ijerph110303453 

    Thompson, C.W.; Roe, J.; Aspinall, P.; Mitchell, R.; Clow, A.; Miller, D. “More green space is linked to less stress in deprived communities: Evidence from salivary cortisol patterns.” Landscape Urban Plan. 2012, 105, 221–229. 

  3. Berman, M.G.; Kross, E.; Krpan, K.M.; Askren, M.K.; Burson, A.; Deldin, P.J.; Kaplan, S.; Sherdell, L.; Gotlib, I.H.; Jonides, J. “Interacting with nature improves cognition and affect for individuals with depression.” JAD 2012, 140, 300–305. 

  4.  Meredith GR, Rakow DA, Eldermire ERB, Madsen CG, Shelley SP and Sachs NA (2020) “Minimum Time Dose in Nature to Positively Impact the Mental Health of College-Aged Students, and How to Measure It: A Scoping Review.” Frontiers in Psychoogy. 10:2942. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02942

  5.  Taylor. A.F., Wikey, A., Kuo, F.E. & Sullivan, W.C. ”Growing up in the inner  city: Green spaces as places to grow,” Environment and Behavior, 30(1) (1998), pp. 3-27.

  6.  Retrieved from: https://ellisonchair.tamu.edu/health-and-well-being-benefits-of-plants/

  7.  Bo-Yi Yang, PhD1; Xiao-Wen Zeng, PhD1; Iana Markevych, PhD2,3,4; et al. “Association Between Greenness Surrounding Schools and Kindergartens and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children in China,” JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(12): e1917862. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.17862 

  8.  Kuo, F.E.; Sullivan, W.C. “Environment and crime in the inner city does vegetation reduce crime?” Environ. Behavior. 2001, 33, 343–367. 

    Garvin, E.C.; Cannuscio, C.C.; Branas, C.C. “Greening vacant lots to reduce violent crime: A randomised controlled trial.” Inj. Prev. 2012, 19, 198–203. 

    Kuo, F.E.; Bacaicoa, M.; Sullivan, W.C. “Transforming inner-city landscapes trees, sense of safety, and preference.” Environ. Behavior. 1998, 30, 28–59. 

    Donovan, G.; Prestemon, J. “The effects of trees on crime in Portland, Oregon”. J. Environ. Behav. 2010, 94, 77–83 

    Charles C. Branas, et al. “Citywide cluster randomized trial to restore blighted vacant land and its effects on violence, crime, and fear.” 2946–2951 PNAS | March 20, 2018, vol. 115, no. 12.

  9.  Mohammad Mehdi Sadeghian* and Zhirayr Vardanyan, “The Benefits of Urban Parks, s Review of Urban Research,” in Journal of Novel Applied Sciences, 2013-2-8, Pp. 231-237.

  10.   Hoffman, Shandas  and Pendleton, “The Effects of Historical Housing Policies on Resident Exposure to Intra-Urban Heat: A Study of 108 US Urban Areas,” in Climate 2020, 8(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli8010012