Environmental Psychology and Health Care Cost: Understanding the Well-Being Level of Delhi Residents

Abstract

Urbanization is the process of urban-population expansion mainly due to the movement of people from rural to urban areas. This causes the expansion of a town or a city. Urbanization is an on-going process that creates opportunities for people on one hand and creates new challenges for sustainable living on the other. Urbanization, although often linked to development, in fact poses several challenges to development. It is a slow and gradual process that, with the passage of time, tries to accommodate increasing numbers of people. Cities undergo demographic, morphological, environmental, social, economic, and cultural changes. With land area being fixed and almost limited, the challenge of accommodating additional people and their needs multiply. It becomes difficult to ascertain the optimum land-use model for cities as they expand haphazardly. Drastic changes in lifestyle and the urban environment further pose health hazards . The imbalance between development and the environment always remains an issue to be solved by experts and planners. Urban expansion eradicates green spaces or the so-called “lungs” of cities. Considerable work has been done in recent times exploring the link between urban green space and the well-being of people. “Green space” refers to a wide variety of natural and landscaped areas both publicly and privately owned. It includes parks, ravines, school yards, private yards, street trees, landscaped open spaces along streets and around buildings, cemeteries, and green roofs. Urban green spaces provide environmental benefits through their positive effects of negating urban heat, off-setting greenhouse-gas emissions, and attenuating storm water. They also have direct health benefits by providing urban residents with spaces for physical activity and social interaction and allowing psychological restoration to take place. The health -related benefits of green space are well known, but there is also an emergent need to understand how green space affects the healthcare cost of an urban household, which is also highlighted in the present study. Urban green spaces are not just a natural phenomenon; their expansion and shrinkage also depend on people’s perceptions and emotions, which ultimately lead to urban well-being and decreased healthcare costs. In the cosmopolitan culture of a city, everyone should have the goal of sustainable living and must be determined to achieve it. It is important for people to understand that awareness and ethics are an integral part of their sustainable urban living. This chapter identifies the green resources of Delhi and attempts to understand and analyse peoples’ perception of the presence of green spaces as well as their need of green spaces for health and overall well-being. The urban green spaces of the capital city were identified by remote sensing using Landsat 7 and 8 images. Keeping in view the strong link between green spaces and environmental psychology, an Environmental Emotional Quotient was formulated based on the questions administered to them.