Mental Well-Being and the Influence of Place: Conceptual Approaches for the Built Environment for Planning Healthy and Walkable Cities

Antonio Zumelzu and Marie Geraldine Herrmann-Lunecke
Additional contact information
Antonio Zumelzu: Instituto de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Núcleo de Investigación en Riesgos Naturales y Antropogénicos, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia 5091000, Chile
Marie Geraldine Herrmann-Lunecke: Departamento de Urbanismo, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8331051, Chile

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: Promotion of healthy cities has prompted urban planners and designers to build new conceptual frameworks to improve the design of public spaces, in which mental well-being emerges as a fundamental concept. Mental well-being is related to spatial design, with increasing attention being paid to the built environment as an important predictor of mental well-being. The objective of this article is to advance and contribute new knowledge about the characteristics of the built environment and its potential benefits for mental well-being. A meta-analysis is carried out on various empirical and theoretical approaches from the literature. Using a WOS database as a case study, a methodology based on a bibliometric analysis is proposed to examine which elements of the built environment impact mental well-being in research between 1975 and 2020, using the HistCites and VOSviewer tools. The results show that there are six thematic axes related to the built environment that would favor greater mental well-being in public spaces: walkability, density, spatial design, environmental noise, green areas and social interaction. The six thematic axes are critically analyzed and integrated into a conceptual framework to address the impacts of the built environment on mental well-being in the planning of cities. It concludes with a discussion on the implications of these concepts for urban public policy and the promotion of healthier and more sustainable and walkable environments in Latin American cities.

Keywords: urban sustainability; mental well-being; built environment; urban planning; walkability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6395/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6395/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:6395-:d:568780

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().