Live near Greenspace – If you can!

The more greenspace we are surrounded by, the happier we are.

Kwon and colleagues report that “By measuring the urban green space score (UGS) from high-resolution satellite imagery of 90 global cities covering 179,168 km² and 230 million people in 60 developed countries, we find that the amount of urban green space and GDP are correlated with a nation’s happiness level.

These findings corroborate the importance of maintaining urban green space as a place for social cohesion to support people’s happiness. . . .

While our findings confirmed a strong correlation between urban green space and happiness in developed countries, the same positive relation holds for developing countries, albeit to a smaller degree.”

So if you can try and live and work in areas where there is lots of greenery, trees, plants and nature views.

Oh-Hyun Kwon, Inho Hong, Jeasurk Yang, Donghee Wohn, Woo-Sung Jung, and Meeyoung Cha.  2021.  “Urban Green Space and Happiness in Developed Countries.”  EPJ Data Science, vol. 10, 28, https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-021-00278-7