Amount of urban green space is not an indicator of residents’ happiness

Srushti Adesara, Max Perkins, Elie Simsch, Eileen Zhang

 The question we asked was whether the amount of green space in a city correlated with

the happiness index of that city. Our study consisted of collecting data about the happiness index,

GDP per capita, and percentage of green space for 63 different cities. We attempted to find any

possible associations between the percentage of green space and happiness index levels in each

city using a regression model. We then graphed the residual data against the GDP per capita in

order to see if there was any correlation there because we thought it might be a confounding

variable. Our results show a non-significant and weakly negative correlation between the amount

of green space in a city and the happiness index of that city. We concluded that green space is

not an indicator for happiness and that there may be more impactful factors that affect the

happiness index of a city, such as the amount of industrialization. More data would need to be

collected in order to make a more definite conclusion. 

 In recent centuries, humans have lived in environments that are becoming increasingly

different from the wild, undeveloped environments that we evolved in. In just the last 60 years,

the urban population has exploded from about 1 billion people to nearly 4.5 billion people - from

about a third of the global population to more than half (World Bank, 2020). These urbanites

interact with cars, concrete buildings, and office spaces much more than they interact with trees

and the outdoor world - what effect does this have on their happiness and wellbeing?

Specifically, we wanted to look at how green spaces in cities are related to happiness - if enough

greenery offsets the misery of living in a concrete jungle. So we pose the question: do green

spaces in urban settings affect the happiness of residents? 

Our hypothesis is that the amount of green space in a city is positively correlated with the

happiness of the residents. So, the more area in a city is filled with trees, fields, parks, and other

green spaces, the happier the residents of that city will be. Humans didn’t evolve in an urban

environment, instead the first modern humans experienced vast open savannas and an unlimited

outdoor world. Indeed, most humans, for most of human history, have lived in entirely natural

settings. Because of this, the human brain may have evolved to appreciate the environment that it

‘grew up in’ - i.e. a natural and wild world, and dislike artificial or developed environments, i.e.

cities. This reasoning is supported in part by a study conducted by Joel Methordst and

colleagues. These researchers investigated how natural species’ diversity affects mental health in

Germany, and found that the higher the variety of bird and plant species, the better German

citizens’ mental health was. They concluded with a recommendation that city planners increase

biodiverse natural environments in cities (Methordst, et al. 2021). 

We use a sample size of 63 cities across the world to conduct our study. These cities

come from an intersection of 186 cities with happiness index values, determined by the World
Happiness Report (WHR) in 2020, and 155 cities with urban green space data, determined by the

Husqvarna Urban Green Space Index (HUGSI). For each of these cities we gather data on the

percentage of urban green space from HUGSI, and the happiness index value from WHR. To

analyze this dataset, we create a scatter plot with percentage of green space on the x-axis and

happiness index value on the y-axis. We calculate a line of best fit, as well as a p-value that tells

us how statistically strong our results are. If the hypothesis is correct, we should see a positive

association between the percentage of green space in a city and the happiness index value of the

city (Figure 1). If the hypothesis is incorrect, we should see either no association or a negative

association between the percentage of green space in a city and the happiness index value of the

city (Figure 2). 

For further analysis, we control for wealth by collecting data on GDP per capita. We

graph GDP per capita versus happiness index, calculate a line of best fit, and determine residuals

for each data point, resulting in a residual happiness index dataset. We then graph this residual

happiness index against green space. This graph gives us information on green space versus

happiness index, controlled for wealth. In short, we have one primary results graph of percentage

of urban green space versus happiness index, and then one analysis graph of percentage of urban

green space versus residual happiness index.

Figure 3 shows the scatterplot of green space percentage as the predictor variable and

happiness index as the response. In this graph, there appears to be no correlation between the two

variables. A linear regression model was built in R to confirm this observation: the adjusted R-

squared value was -0.012 and the p-value was 0.584, which is higher than the significance level

of 0.05. In order to control for GDP per capita as a confounding variable, we compiled several

GDP datasets and plotted each city’s GDP as a predictor of its happiness index (Figure 4). The
graph shows a strong positive correlation, with an adjusted R-squared value of 0.41 and a p-

value of <0.001. We extracted the residual happiness from this regression model and plotted it

against green space (Figure 5). This final model shows a weakly negative correlation between

residual happiness and green space (adjusted R-squared = 0.034; p = 0.09), which is not what we

predicted under our hypothesis. This result is consistent with the graph in Figure 2 — the

expected data if our hypothesis was incorrect. The correlation in Figure 5 is also not significant

because the p-value is higher than our significance level.

Our results show that there is a non-significant negative correlation between the amount

of green space in a city and the happiness index of that city. We can conclude that urban green

space percentage is not an indicator of a city’s happiness. The strengths of our study design were

that we focused on cities around the world so that we could get a fair representation of whether

green space affects happiness levels regardless of location. However, a weakness was that we did

not have a large amount of data. Our unresolved question is whether we can trust our conclusion

or that we reached it due to the shortage of data we had. A study that would yield more definitive

results and would answer our unresolved question would be if we performed the same procedure

as the current study design but had at least 150 cities instead of 63. If our hypothesis is correct

then as the amount of green space in a city increases, so should the happiness index (Figure 1). If

our hypothesis is incorrect then as the amount of green space in a city increases, the happiness

index would not increase or would decrease (Figure 2).  

 Figures

Figure 1. Prediction graph of percentage of green space vs. happiness index value for cities,

if the hypothesis is correct. This graph displays a positive association: as the percentage of green

space increases, the happiness index value also increases. 

Figure 2. Prediction graphs of percentage of green space vs. happiness index value for

cities, if the hypothesis is incorrect. These two graphs show no association and a negative

association, respectively: as the percentage of green space increases, the happiness index value

either doesn’t change in a clear direction, or decreases. 

Figure 3. Scatterplot of each city’s percentage of green space versus its happiness index.

There appears to be no correlation between green space and happiness.

 Figure 4. Scatterplot of each city’s GDP per capita versus its happiness. There is a strong

correlation between happiness and GDP.

Figure 5. Scatterplot of each city’s percentage of green space versus its residual happiness

index. Residuals were extracted from the linear regression model of Figure 4. With GDP per

capita removed as a confounding variable, there is a weak and nonsignificant negative

correlation between happiness and green space.

Literature Cited

Methordst, Joel, Bonn, Aletta, Marselle, Melissa, Bohning-Gaese, Katrin, Rehdanz, Katrin. 2021.

Species richness is positively related to mental health – A study for Germany. Landscape and

Urban Planning 211. DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104084