A public survey found 86% of people want more space for nature in the city. The city council is already taking steps to add green space and increase biodiversity, which should boost public wellbeing.
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Articles on Nature in cities
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Cities are starting to restore natural systems such as waterways, wetlands and bushland. But restoration on the scale these systems need to function properly calls for a rethink of urban planning.
Noting nature around you – it could be a glance outside, tending plants, or ‘green’ exercise – will improve your well-being, research shows. The coronavirus pandemic has made it even more important.
It’s well-established that green spaces are good for our well-being. Now we can demonstrate that greater biodiversity boosts this benefit, as well as helping to sustain native plants and animals.
When parents walk in the forest with their children and us and see how children are drawn to spiral snails, together we see how connections with the land are critical for the Earth’s future.
Moves to connect people with nature for both the conservation and health benefits point to the need for people to experience nature as they find it in the city, rather than only out in natural areas.
Australian cities are home to many threatened species but are also where biodiversity is being destroyed by development. But what if planning and design processes built nature into the urban fabric?
Parks should service a variety of needs, not just cater to one group of people.
If the nature we desire is, in fact, its expression as untamed wildness, then we should turn to the creativity of artists as well as urban designers when building our cities.
Faecal transplants and virtual nature are technological solutions to ‘nature deficit disorder’ from urban living. Such ‘quick fixes’ offer some benefits, but are no substitute for the real thing.
Successful parks and urban green spaces encourage us to linger, to rest, to walk for longer. That, in turn, provides the time to maximise the restorative mental benefits.
We aren’t just jostling with each other for beach space. Scuttling, waddling, hopping or flying away from beachgoers all around Australia, wildlife struggles to survive the daily disturbances.
The rise of urban greening is an opportunity to recast the relationship between people and environment. Humans and non-human species are ecologically intertwined as inhabitants of cities.
The rhetoric of ‘smart cities’ is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight. Truly smart and resilient cities need to be more in tune with the planet.
Nature is dispersed through our cities, even if we don’t notice it. And there’s abundant evidence that engaging with nature, even in urban settings, is good for us.
Cities are aiming to increase their tree cover. But there will need to be more than trees to encourage wildlife to return.
Welcome to the CBD. Take a look at all the glass masonry and asphalt. The streets are canyons. Apart from a tree in the footpath, or a Peregrine Falcon way overhead, there’s little nature to be seen. Nature…
Top contributors
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Professor, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney
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Assistant Researcher, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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Adjunct Professor, Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University
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Lecturer, Australian Urban Design Research Centre, The University of Western Australia
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Research Fellow, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland
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Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, RMIT University
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Professor in Biodiversity and Conservation, The University of Queensland
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Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management, University of Tasmania
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Research Fellow, School of Design, RMIT University
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Postdoc, University of Konstanz
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Senior lecturer, RMIT University
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Research assistant, The University of Queensland
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Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University
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PhD Candidate, Doctor of Social Sciences, Royal Roads University
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Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
