Urban Greening Helps You Sleep!

Japanese street with urban greening

A new joint investigation by Japanese and Chinese researchers has found a direct link between the design of the urban environment you live in and how well you sleep.  In particular the findings suggest that greener neighbourhoods are associated with longer sleep, especially when greening was used to “frame” or enhance a street rather than pedestrianise it or similar. In fact pedestrianised areas actually lowered the quality and length of sleep achieved.

The research team used AI to analyse over 200,000 Google Street View images to identify visual neighbourhood characteristics. They then linked these to the self-reported sleep of 1,089 working adults living on the lower floors of apartments in those areas.
Urban streetscapes visual element analysis

The researchers believe this is a correlation between the perceived safety of a neighbourhood. A busy but attractive looking area with associated greening as viewed from the location of the occupant’s residence was seen to be safer and more secure than say a  pedestrian-friendly street layout with no greening which was associated with lower perceived safety and shorter sleep.

   

“We identified two potential mechanisms: greenness was associated with higher perceived safety and, in turn, longer sleep duration, whereas micro-scale walkability was associated with lower perceived safety and, in turn, shorter sleep duration. “
The reports author’s say the findings help broaden understanding of how the urban environment and urban greening influences sleep health, and identifies  practical things that could be used to inform future studies and urban planning aimed at creating healthier cities.
Tokyo city high rise and parkYou can read the full study at:
which includes some informative examples of the types of areas studied during the research and how the analysis was done.

Or please contact us if you have a greening project or installation you would like to talk to us about. We are always happy to discuss your plans with you without obligation.