4 Discussion and conclusion
The construction of urban green spaces can have a signifcant impact on residents’ wellbeing, but the impact is not linear; people who live between 1 and 5 km from such areas have the highest level of well-being, while those at a distance of over 10 km have the lowest. The higher the frequency of participation with the space, the higher the well-being, which shows that regularly visiting a city park or public green space has a signifcantly positive impact on welfare, especially in terms of physical and mental well-being. Purchasing potted green plants also has a signifcantly positive impact on residents’ physical and mental well-being. Further, individual characteristics are important factors; age, education, occupation status, marital status, years living in Beijing, residential area, and average income per month have a signifcant impact on the residents’ well-being; however, the impact of gender is not signifcant.
The results of this study further verify that public green spaces have signifcant positive efects on human well-being (White and Depledge 2013; Kabisch et al. 2015; Fleming et al. 2016); the inverted U-shape relationship between distance to green spaces and wellbeing, which corresponds to Bertram and Rehdanz (2015), particularly demonstrates these efects. In addition, higher income is associated with greater well-being, and education, occupation status, marital status have signifcant efects on well-being, further supporting the existing research (Kahneman et al. 2004; Ambrey and Fleming 2012; Xu et al. 2014). Findings specifc to this study are as follows: we can improve our well-being by taking an active part in urban green space utilization by increasing the frequency of our visits to green spaces and by buying potted green plants four our home or workplace. We also found that residents who live in urban areas experience a more negative efect on well-being than those living in suburban districts.
