ABSTRACT
Biodiverse, vegetation-rich, greenspaces are important to public health in urban environments. Links between residential proximity and equitable access to natural environments have been made with cardiometabolic disorders and emotional wellbeing, and there is evidence that spending time in nature improves cognitive restoration, decreases oxidative stress, and lowers markers of stress physiology and low-grade inflammation. While the main focus of this chapter is on the outdoor environment, contact with nature indoors also influences human health. Many of the ills affecting urbanites in the beginning of the twenty-first century – cancer, diabetes, obesity and depression – may be explained by a central theory, which posits that chronic, low-level inflammation is at the root of these ills and is, in part, a direct consequence of the environment in which we live. This raises the important question of what we can do to address this situation. In this chapter, the discourse around that challenge and the resulting reframing is set out with a focus on ecosystem services and disservices and natural capital within cities. Emergent is the view that to realise the health benefits attributable to contact with nature, the way greenspaces are incorporated into urban environments needs to be repositioned in policy and practice.
