Recent studies show that urban parks are healthy in surprising ways in addition to physical and emotional health, writes Jeff Caldwell of Litchfield Landscape Elements.
Studies have shown that urban parks have a positive effect on everything from physical health and fitness to cognition and memory, writes Jeff Caldwell, an urban parks enthusiast and manager at Litchfield Landscape Elements. But shopping impulse control?
According to another study published in PLOS ONE, natural settings significantly improved impulse control. In this study, participants were asked to look at images from one of three categories: natural, urban and geometric shapes. After looking at the images, researchers asked each participant whether they would prefer a smaller amount of money immediately or a larger amount sometime in the future — $10 today versus $100 next week, as an example. Those who looked at natural images were far more likely to choose the larger amount of money in the future.
Jeff goes on to explore the reasons for the many and varied beneficial effects of urban parks.
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Harvard University Graduate School of Design
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The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
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Journal of the American Planning Association