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The Fruit of Urban NatureVital Neighborhood SpacesDepartment of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign wcsulliv{at}uiuc.edu
Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign What makes a neighborhood space vital? This article explores the possibility that the presence of trees and grass may be one of the key components of vital neighborhood spaces. We report on 758 observations of individuals in 59 outdoor common spaces in a residential development. Twenty-seven of the neighborhood common spaces were relatively green, whereas 32 were relatively barren. Results indicate that the presence of trees and grass is related to the use of outdoor spaces, the amount of social activity that takes place within them, and the proportion of social to nonsocial activities they support. The findings improve and broaden our understanding of the physical characteristics that influence social contact among neighbors and provide evidence that nature plays an important role in creating vital neighborhood spaces.
Key Words: nature • landscape • social ties • community • social activity
Environment and Behavior, Vol. 36, No. 5,
678-700 (2004) This article has been cited by other articles:
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