COVID-19 Shows Us the Need to Plan Urban Green Spaces More Systemically for Urban Health and Wellbeing

significance of urban green spaces has been highlighted by the complex socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on a global scale. 1. Sustainable urban development needs to go beyond segmented actions and to take a more systemic approach to urban planning, particularly that of green spaces. 2. Urban green spaces are particularly invaluable for those who cannot afford a spacious living environment, such as migrant workers and other vulnerable groups. 3. Urban green spaces should be treated as an invaluable common-pool resource for common health and wellbeing, i.e. one’s use of green spaces should not reduce the availability of them for others, yet it is impossible and inadequate to exclude any residents from using green spaces regardless of their socio-economic status. 4. Policymakers should establish universal access to urban green space as the basic principle of urban planning, integrate climate modelling and public health monitoring into green space planning, and incorporate all societal actors in urban green space governance from planning to building to use and further to maintenance, for enhancing both social and environmental sustainability. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion