A Transdisciplinary Framework to Unlock the Potential Benefits of Green Spaces for Urban Communities under Changing Contexts

Abstract

New urban models increasingly seek to create more sustainable, livable, and healthier cities by reinvigorating green space. In this article, we highlight and briefly review several main but disconnected areas of study in which the factors that frame human–environment interactions and therefore also influence the potential well-being outcomes of those interactions are studied. We then use the intersection of affordance theory and socio-institutional programming to provide a conceptual framework that ties together these spheres of research, and we discuss some critical keys for enabling different positive green space experiences. Urban communities are not homogeneous, and accounting for the intersection between individual differences and landscape programming opens up more diverse pathways for affording positive human–environment interactions and different well-being outcomes.