Menu
City Know-hows
What qualities do we find in walking the same path or choosing to walk a different path daily? Can the quality help us in decision-making and management?
Share
Target audience
Nature professionals and activity managers in municipalities.
The problem
We try to understand what individuals can experience and benefit from when they go on their daily walk.
What we did and why
We had 59 people walking the same path 15 times and then walk 15 different paths. We asked them about the qualities they experienced.
Our study’s contribution
Our study aims at understanding the qualities of different. Although previous studies have explored the well-being-related benefits of recreational walking in nature, studies examining the perceived qualities and contextual factors of these walks are rare;
• Pedagogical use: the same path may allow individuals to experience a shift in mental state, promoting more subtle, inward-focused benefits. Familiar routes can offer a sense of safety and connectedness,
• Pedagogical use: new paths encourage exploration and deeper engagement with the environment.
How and what we experience depends on how the walk is approached; our experience is shaped by attitudes, life circumstances, and daily routine.
Impacts for city policy and practice
City policy must allow for a variety of nature walks in the nearby environment so that the public can do daily walks both on the same path but also have the opportunity to explore.
Further information
Full research article:
[OPEN ACCESS] A new path, or the same as yesterday? – An intervention study on experienced recreational qualities of everyday nature walks by Kirsten Wielandt Houe, Annette Bischoff and Evi Petersen
Related posts
Among the factors impacting functioning and quality of life in autism, aspects of the built environment have recently gained increasing attention. However, the opportunity of proposing a universal framework for cross-scalar examination of these factors remains largely unrealized.
By narrowing the focus to public transport, a key component of urban spatial structure and urban mobility, this study explores the applicability of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) in examining the built environmental factors that influence autism.
Public health has historically been an important factor driving urban planning policy in England but is currently rarely a priority. We explore the factors behind this, try to explain them in the context of policy developments since COVID-19, and consider what needs to change at national policy level to support healthier placemaking in the future.
The degradation of the urban freshwater ecosystem has consequences to human population of cities. We proposed and tested an approach to identify and quantify the risk for the populations living near urban streams within the city, due to the degradation of ecosystems services.
