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The role of urban green space for human well-being

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  • Bertram, Christine
  • Rehdanz, Katrin

Abstract

Most people in Europe live in urban environments. For these people, urban green space is an important element of well-being, but it is often in short supply. We use self-reported information on life satisfaction and different individual green space measures to explore how urban green space affects the well-being of the residents of Berlin, the capital city of Germany. We combine spatially explicit survey data with spatially highly disaggregated GIS data on urban green spaces. We observe a significant, inverted U-shaped effect of the amount of and distance to urban green space on life satisfaction. According to our results, the optimal amount of green space in a 1 km buffer is 36 ha, or 11.5% of the buffer area, and 75% of the respondents have less green space available. Our results are robust to a number of robustness checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertram, Christine & Rehdanz, Katrin, 2014. "The role of urban green space for human well-being," Kiel Working Papers 1911, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:1911
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    life satisfaction; urban ecosystem services; urban green space; well-being;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General

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