Green spaces in the megalopolis, the deliberate arrangement of wastelands and areas unsuitable for infrastructure, is useful for the emotional and mental state of the townspeople. Specialists from the University of Pennsylvania (USA) carried out scientific work on this topic, NPR reports. If most of the previous studies were "observational", now scientists have intervened in the urban environment.
For the experiments, we chose areas of Philadelphia where the poor live. The city turned out to be a good laboratory, as it contains many abandoned buildings and wastelands, often cluttered with rubbish - more than 40,000 objects, most of them in poor neighborhoods. The experimenters randomly selected 541 sites in different parts of Philadelphia and divided them into 3 groups. In the control group, vacant lots remained untouched, in the second - the territories were only cleared of garbage, in the third - herbs, flowers, trees were planted on the cleared areas. The researchers called this third site “interference” with the urban environment.
Before and after the experiments, residents living near the three sites were examined at the time of their mental state according to a certain scale. People were asked how often they get nervous, feel depressed, unnecessary, etc. The Depression Scale alone does not diagnose mental illness, but a survey score of more than 13 indicates a higher prevalence of mental illness in a particular community. As a result, it was found that citizens living near newly green areas began to feel much more positive. Green spaces have had the strongest impact on residents of poor neighborhoods. Here the prevalence of depression has decreased by at least 27.5%.
According to experts, it is possible that urban greening will be able to smooth out the effect of socio-economic inequality, and contemplation of nature at the physical level and joint work on the improvement of sites have a beneficial effect on the human body, regardless of status. In addition, according to the observations of scientists, the appearance of green areas reduces the crime rate. The townspeople felt more secure, which also partly explains the improvement in their mental health.
The authors of the experiment calculated that the work on "environmental intervention" in Philadelphia cost them $ 1600. Further maintenance of each of the green areas will cost $ 180 per year. Greening turns out to be a very simple, inexpensive, and effective intervention that can improve mental health in a large group of people at once.