The significance of urban greenspaces in everyday life

Hardwicke, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1152-0920, Hill, K and Ryan, D, 2025. The significance of urban greenspaces in everyday life. International Review of Sociology, 35 (1), pp. 48-71. ISSN 0390-6701

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Abstract

Urban greenspaces are recognised as important assets for supporting and promoting human flourishing in an increasingly urbanised world. Whilst much epidemiological research has shown the various health benefits of urban greenspaces, far less work has focused on personal everyday interactions with, and within, them. By examining the social significance of urban greenspaces, this article shows how they are important resources people use within their everyday to enhance a broadly defined understanding of wellbeing. The insight draws on data from ‘intercept go-along’ interviews with 66 people using greenspaces in one British urban town. Our analysis details how people understood urban greenspaces as ‘pockets’ of social life which afforded temporary escape from urbanism, access to the ‘natural’ world and facilitated largely positive interactions with familiar and unfamiliar greenspace visitors which helped foster a sense of community. Considered against the growing urban population, the structural and interactional conditions of modern Western societies, and rising focus on asset-place-based approaches to address public health concerns, we position urban greenspaces as an important resource for global and local strategies aimed at supporting human flourishing. In making this case, empirical and methodological contributions to the sociology of people-place relationships and research in the built environment are offered.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	International Review of Sociology
Creators:	Hardwicke, J., Hill, K. and Ryan, D.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Date:	2025
Volume:	35
Number:	1
ISSN:	0390-6701
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/03906701.2024.2437396 DOI 2306820 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Melissa Cornwell
Date Added:	02 Dec 2024 11:40
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2026 08:35
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52686

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