Nature is Nurture: How Do New Yorkers Seek out Wellness in Greenspaces?

The pandemic highlighted the need for more accessibility, equity and inclusion in our parks. Now, the question is: what comes next?

by Aurora Russell

“Spring semester 2022, I felt incredibly disconnected from nature and it felt like I was kind of suffocating in the city,” New York University student Andrew Davis says. Being from a small town in Minnesota, with a nature preserve within a mile of his family home, Davis has grown up surrounded by nature in a way that’s not possible in an urban environment like New York City.

“I actually left the city during finals week — because I was feeling stressed and drained — to go hiking in upstate New York, and I spent the entire day doing that,” Davis says. “Greenspaces are energizing and refreshing in a way I wasn’t able to appreciate until I wasn’t able to be around them all the time.”

While Davis enjoys the community in Washington Square Park –where he spends a lot of time in the surrounding buildings for classes — he has found a more familiar, all-encompassing feeling of nature in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

“I love Prospect Park,” Davis says. “It’s where I’ve gone when I’ve felt stressed academically, professionally and personally. It’s an incredibly relaxing place for me to be and it allows me to shut that out as I walk around.”

Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on a sunny spring afternoon seems to bring everybody outside. Sit on the lawn at the south end of the the lake and you’re almost guaranteed to see couples walking hand-in-hand along the water, grandparents dancing at their grandkid’s birthday party, dogs meet-and-greeting, fathers teaching their daughters how to throw frisbees, friends setting up hammocks and picnics, toddlers tossing bread at the geese. Stroll around the east side of the lake and you’ll find a whole new world. The boathouse holding a wedding ceremony, a dog beach where proud pet parents mingle, paved pathways that accommodate rollerbladers with music playing on their speakers, a docking point where people are renting duck boats to roam the waterway. This side is so different and, somehow, the same: people using the park as an extension to their home, sharing this public space in such distinct ways.

Prospect Park can be many different things. It accommodates a richly diverse population, not only in terms of ethnic and socioeconomic background, but also in terms of ability. Paved pathways allow people with wheelchairs, walkers, strollers, skateboards, and rollerblades to access the park just like any other parkgoer does — being able to safely navigate the same sights. Tree-covered shady areas allow people to cool down and help those who might be sensitive to bright light — creating comfortable, user-directed levels of stimulation.

Photo of people picnicking by the lake in Prospect Park by Aurora Russell

It’s been said repeatedly by now that people’s mental health took a hard hit during the pandemic. According to a set of polls done by the U.S. Census Bureau in May 2020, 35% of New York adults reported symptoms of depression and/or anxiety — two to three times higher than the average pre-pandemic polls showed. Mental health is quickly becoming less culturally stigmatized and more urgent, especially amongst adolescents.

Living in one of the most densely populated cities in the world — with a whopping 29,303 people living within every square mile — New Yorker’s tactics for taking care of their mental wellbeing often go beyond therapy. And during the pandemic, New Yorkers had to think outside of their shoebox-sized apartments to come up with ways to social distance while also socially connecting. So they turned to their local parks, community gardens and even cemeteries — any inch of green or open space they could find.

COVID, as we know, saw a parks boom. A 2021 report from the National Recreation and Park Association showed seven out of ten people in the United States increased or maintained their use of public parks during this time. The same report showed that nine out of ten people agree that parks are an important service provided by their local government.

Photo of parkgoers lounging on the lawn at Domino Park by Aurora Russell

But New Yorkers’ reliance on parks as a response didn’t end as pandemic restrictions eased. Today New York City parks are just as, if not more, full. Central Park remains the most visited park in the country, according to the Trust for Public Land.

Green spaces are an essential thread in public health, especially in urban environments. A recent study done by the Journal of Mental Health in 2021 analyzed data from 25 international studies on the relationship between mental well-being and green spaces in urban environments. This meta-analysis found that a higher amount of urban green space access is associated with reduced prevalence of anxiety and depression.

In The Urban Brain, Nikolas Rose and Des Fitzgerald describe a neuroimaging study that found an area of the brain associated with “positive emotions” lit up when looking at images of greenery. They concluded that we, as people, have “an inherent preference towards nature-friendly living.”

While the need to support mental health through green spaces was exacerbated by the last few years their prevalence seems to be outlasting the pandemic By revealing just how necessary parks are for our wellbeing, the pandemic also, maybe unexpectedly, shed light on their shortcomings. Neighborhoods hit the hardest by the pandemic are the same areas that have minimal parks access. The average park size in poorer neighborhoods is 6.4 acres, with the average across wealthy neighborhoods is 14 acres. Our green space has deep flaws in design and policy when it comes to who can access what. And as the city recovers from the pandemic, it’s worth asking: will we remember those lessons?

More Green and Better Design Make for a Stronger Community

Dr. Ruth A. Rae, an environmental psychologist and NYU professor, knows a thing or two about how public space works from the perspective of the Parks Department’s (NYC Parks)former Project and Facilities Manager. She recalls the Million Trees initiative she took part in during her decade working there, and how communities used the additional nature to their advantage.

“You have to try to incorporate nature into the city wherever it is,” says Dr. Rae. “People seek out nature wherever they find it — by just putting a chair under a tree for example.”

The Million Trees initiative — true to its name — planted one million trees around the city from 2007 to 2015. Although this initiative did help increase the trees that line the streets to today’s 650,000, they didn’t all survive and weren’t evenly distributed throughout the city — a reality that resonates within the city’s parks.

Green spaces in urban environments go beyond parks and even beyond the grassy or tree-filled spaces that are easily visible when moving around the city. “[It’s about] finding green spaces in cities that might’ve been forgotten about,” said Dr. Rae. “Cemeteries [for example] are places some people visit that aren’t commonly acknowledged as urban greenspace.”

Cemeteries are, after all, supplementary greenspaces we already have for quieter recreational activities. Amidst the search for space in the pandemic, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery opened all of its gates until 7pm daily to allow for the community to use the space more freely. Being one of the first rural cemeteries in the country, Green-Wood sits on a 478-acre lot with over 8,000 trees, rolling hills and a view of the Manhattan skyline. Among having the space and access to nature city-dwellers crave, the 180-year-old cemetery has programming ranging from early-morning bird-watching and after-hours star-gazing to dance performances and tree tours.

Based on evaluations during park improvements in Los Angeles from 2004 to 2008, The Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics found in 2014 that mental health issues are significantly more prevalent in people who live more than one-fourth a mile away from a park. This mental health rating drops gradually the further a person lives from a park. In this same analysis, researchers also found that the number of visits and amount of physical activity was higher in those who lived closer to parks.

Photo of parkgoers sitting on bench, overlooking Hell Gate Bridge in Astoria Park by Aurora Russell

The city’s Open Streets program — which has opened up over over 300 blocks of city streets to pedestrians and bicyclists — provided much desired additional space during the pandemic and was so successful, it became permanent. Certain Open Streets are either in effect during weekdays or solely on weekends, but a common factor is the way in which they also promote physical and mental wellbeing. In several cases, the Open Streets act as an extension to some neighborhood parks, which extends their footprint and brings the open green spaces a little closer.

“I think it works really, really well when it actually connects to parks,” says John Surico, an NYU professor and key researcher on “A New Leaf” — an in-depth report on park infrastructure that led to a large budget increase– during his time at the Center for an Urban Future. “If you make parks easier to get to, if you make them more accessible for all different sorts of people to get to — not just people who are able to drive — that just expands the range of the parks. I think that’s such an important thing.”

But NYC Parks isn’t always willing to look beyond park borders. Surico shares that, in his research and interviews, he found that the department considers anything outside of parks to be out of their domain, leaving the policy surrounding street space to the Department of Transportation (NYCDOT). A similar issue has arisen with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which historically considered the way people physically get to the subways, which they oversee, to be outside of their purview — although they’re currently rethinking that balance of accessibility and equity.

For Rosalind Tsang, design aims to strike a balance between science and art, however that might manifest in a built environment. Spanning from buildings to green spaces, design for inclusion is one of her key focuses as the NYC Studio Director at Building Design Partnership (BDP) and a fellow at Urban Design Forum (UDF) — the latter an initiative that “promotes good, healthy living,” in Tsang’s words.

UDF brings together civic leaders from different backgrounds in New York in order to discuss issues in the city’s built environment. This year’s program, Good Form, brings together architects (like Tsang), public health researchers, park developers, planners, engineers, and advocates to further conversations between public health researchers and the design community.

Covering a diverse range of backgrounds, the keynote speakers at a recent event highlighted the inequities in parks when it came to promoting park goers’ mental health. The group spoke in-depth about how neurodiversity materializes in many ways; how neurodivergent individuals seek out mental wellness in green spaces; who is marginalized within that community; and how designers can be more inclusive. The group coined the term “shamescapes” to describe the hostile street and park architecture that targets unhoused individuals and those with mental health challenges.

Their proposed solution? “Safescapes” — inclusive architecture that encourages a wide range of uses in one greenspace. Welcoming environments, respite and active spaces, services and participatory design were just a few of their recommendations. Beyond individual park’s design, the group proposed that government sectors establish a public design framework for city parks that centers mental health, investing in more research surrounding the impacts of parks on mental health and increasing greenspaces at large.

Design for inclusion stems from “universal design,” which tries to include a wider range of the population, of all levels of ability. “Inclusive design looks at non-physical access, or universal access, but also mental health access — looking at the whole kind of centrum of neurodiversity and designing for a diversity of uses,” said Tsang in an interview after. “It’s promoting equity, wellbeing and participation in the built environment.”

Design for inclusion means taking a broader inclusive lens on design, whether that be in buildings or parks, and not aiming to single out any certain group of people. It’s important to design parks that have a variety of uses for the widest range of users, and to design them in a way that’s conscious about accessibility. More and more, members of the community are also being consulted about what design is inclusive.

“Regarding community input, we host community input meetings for every capital project…” Izzy Verdery, a press officer for NYC Parks, said over email. “Additionally, since the pandemic the meetings are now held on zoom, increasing accessibility so folks can zoom in from anywhere.”

NYC Parks regularly tries to engage the community in conversations about decisions happening in parks and for parks around the city. This kind of partnership allows for a more diverse range of people to find inclusion in their local green spaces.

Another partnership that has dominated the world of open- and green spaces are what’s known as P3s: public-private partnerships. This type of collaboration takes into consideration the fact that the public owns the land while the private has the knowledge and capital. This partnership also allows for more voices from backgrounds such as Tsang’s — someone with extensive knowledge about designing inclusive, accessible spaces with neurodiversity in mind — to come through in new construction.

Tsang speaks about the ways the city has hired private developers to design usable recreation spaces under bridges, and how that’s allowed for more accessible spaces to appear around the city, in spaces that already existed. A well-known example of one of these privately owned public spaces (POPS) is the glass-window-enclosed space with tables and chairs at 590 Madison Avenue. Today, there are over 590 POPS at 380 buildings in New York City.

“That kind of activation of public space is really one way in which the public sector has been able to promote people’s mental wellbeing,” says Tsang.

Using pre-existing, perhaps unused, spaces around the city has been done for many years at this point and will continue to be necessary as the need for space increases even further. The High Line is a great example of a park that took over a space previously inhabited by transit turned unused. The elevated gardens hold over 500 species of plants, a third of those being once native that have — through the urbanization of Manhattan — been removed almost entirely.

Appreciating the addition of nature wherever that might be, the High Line’s Director of Agriculture, Richard Hayden, highlights the need for intentionality and community outreach when it comes to large projects that affect city’s residents. In Hayden’s words, the High Line is about interpreting nature and presenting it to the public in an inclusive, realistic way that balances all of its naturalistic elements.

“I think the High Line is the most important garden of the 21st century,” Hayden says.

The High Line is just one example of reimagined spaces that help green the city while offering programming and community-building opportunities. One example of a park cared for by a conservancy and not just NYC Parks.

An opportunity Hayden hopes to add in the future would be hands-on gardening experiences, especially geared toward children, “There’s something uniquely meditative about getting your hands in the soil,” he said.

Beyond Health

The 1,700 parks in New York City not only support residents’ mental and physical wellbeing, but also serve as a financial lifeline for some individuals and families. Artist Thor Wickstrom has spent the last 30 years painting different New York scenes, feeling drawn to paint nature in particular.

“Although it’s specifically about art, I love coming to the city’s parks,” Wickstrom said when we spoke at Washington Square Park. “The first park I painted was Tompkins [Square Park] and I [taught] myself.” Wickstrom has his own business where he sells his paintings. In any of his paintings of New York, you’ll spot a park or at least some trees interwoven into the city scene. The city’s architecture and nature, he tells me, inspires his work and bring him some peace of mind every day.

Photo of Wickstrom painting at Washington Square Park by Aurora Russell

John Bellez and Kenya Dell have started their own businesses over the course of the pandemic. They’ve set up a vending booth at Washington Square Park almost every day for over a year, selling jewelry and pottery.

“Selling our products in Washington Square has helped us grow a lot, mentally and economically,” Bellez said. Dell finishes the thought, “Plus we’ve grown as friends.”

The city’s parks offer a unique sense of community among artists like Wickstrom, Bellez and Dell, while also offering a way for them to support themselves fiscally and mentally.

Finding Equity and Inclusion

Organizations like the Nature Conservancy (NAC) and the Trust for Public Land (TPL) have been advocating for more equitable green spaces in New York for years. According to The Trust for Public Land, creating 70 new parks in the Bronx, Queens, South Brooklyn, and Staten Island would close the park accessibility gap tomorrow. But then there’s the issue of another green.

“If we don’t recognize [the need for more and better parks] with actual dollars, and don’t recognize that with, you know, the headcount that’s needed to operate [the parks] system that is gigantic and sprawling, I think it’s just words on paper,” says Surico.

In theory, NYC Parks would be the agency implementing these new policies and creating more inclusive green spaces. But the agency only receives less than 1% of the city budget to provide services to nearly eight million people.

Even with the recent surge in park usage Mayor Eric Adams is proposing to cut $63 million from the NYC Parks budget for 2023, which would leave the parks budgetat 0.6% of the city’s overall budget — a far cry from the 1% of the budget Adams promised advocates and voters during his campaign.

But according to Surico, NYC Parks hasn’t ever fully recovered from the near-bankruptcy of the city in the 1970s. New York’s fiscal crisis led to severe budget cuts to government departments, NYC Parks being one of those. But, unlike other departments that have regained their funding fully and then some with the increased city budget, NYC Parks hasn’t. According to an HR&A analysis, since 1980, the Department of Sanitation experienced a 148% increase and the Police Department a 127% increase. NYC Parks has had a 72% increase.

Surico proposes that the department should receive more funding so it can staff more planners, operators and mental health specialists. Right now the budget really only leaves space for baseline maintenance of parks and doesn’t leave a lot of space to address the mental health crisis.

Keeping the Focus on Greenspaces

At the end of the day, greenspaces are an integral thread to New Yorkers’ lives in the city. It’s where we go to read, where we teach someone how to throw a frisbee, where we celebrate birthdays, where we feed the geese, where we picnic and where we fall in love with nature. Green spaces offer a space for active recreation, respite and revitalization. It’s no question that people see how necessary the spaces are for their physical and mental wellbeing, too.

But there is the question: where will we go from here?

Photo of couple sitting on the lawn, overlooking Manhattan skyline from Sunset Park by Aurora Russell