ABSTRACT
The social value and the role of environmental welfare is changing. Landscape architecture is an action originated from the traditional concept of creating a landscape; furthermore, it is a practical academic field of promoting an environm...
ABSTRACT
The social value and the role of environmental welfare is changing. Landscape architecture is an action originated from the traditional concept of creating a landscape; furthermore, it is a practical academic field of promoting an environment where people can lead a safe life. Recognizing such professional significance of landscape architecture, the establishment of legal systems and its concepts for protecting public health, safety, and welfare are being made.
In particular, among a variety of landscapes as a physical object of landscape architecture, an urban park, which emerged along with the beginning of modern landscape architecture, has functioned as an environmental form of fulfilling the conviction of welfare, and a pleasant environment and social benefits provided by an urban park have contributed to improving public welfare.
However, in spite of agreeing on the fact that an urban park has a positive effect on public welfare, the study on concepts of welfare inherent in an urban park and the effect of the welfare value of an urban park has not been made properly as yet. That is also because leaving aside the fact that landscape architecture is a practical academic field of creating a park which is closely associated with our real life environment, a theoretical study on urban park welfare has hardly been mentioned in terms of landscape architecture.
Therefore, this study establishes the concept and effects of urban park welfare as follows by considering literature and cases of comprehensive academic fields which are related to the concept of urban park welfare, such as social welfare, architecture, ecology, economics, psychology, environmentology, sociology, and medicine.
First, the concept of urban park welfare means that "everyone makes a safe and fair use of the social value of an urban park by providing a pleasant environment through creating and improving an urban park and thus the quality of individual life is improved and the wellbeing of the entire society is sought." The concept of urban park welfare includes both the concepts of 'functionality' and 'equity.' The former means social benefits provided by an urban park and the latter means the impartial distribution that everyone can make an equal use of such benefits.
On the other hand, in order to put welfare into practice, it is necessary to find out people's desires, use suitable resources to meet them, and design a system of deliver the resources most efficiently. In this context, individuals' desire and interest in their physical and mental health or their social activities correspond to desires among components for fulfilling the concept of urban park welfare, and social benefits provided by an urban park serve as resources to satisfy beneficiaries' desires or matters.
If that is the case, it is also necessary to consider the delivery system of connecting desires to resources. Contrary to social welfare services, which tend to be one-sided, the fulfillment of ultimate welfare values through an urban park is possible when along with providing an urban park, all the society, families, and individuals participate actively. Accordingly, as well as promoting an urban park as a place where desires of individuals and the society are met, consideration is indispensable for ways that people can make a healthy and safe use of an urban park.
Furthermore, the effects of urban park welfare were divided and established as the effect of health promotion and the economic and environmental effect. First, an urban park promotes physical, mental, and social health. Physical activities can prevent health problems of obesity, adult diseases, and others related to those problems. In addition, the communion with nature within an urban park or green areas not only is helpful for relieving mental health such as depression and anxiety but also has a positive effect on human beings in a wide range of aspects such as break, recovery, stress relief, social bond, and interaction.
An urban park is also effective in children suffering from attention deficit. Treatments utilizing woods, a garden, or a wetland within an urban park or contacts with nature can relieve attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or attention deficit disorder (ADD).
Second, an urban park contributes to economic sustainability including reinvigorating the rural economy, reviving urban tourism industry, improving the property values of the park site and surroundings, and securing tax revenue.
Third, the value of urban park welfare has a positive influence on environmental sustainability such as improving and purifying air pollution, providing the habitat for specific wildlife, controlling flood and managing water, improving urban heat island effect, adapting to and mitigating climate changes.
On the other hand, values of urban park welfare have a positive effect on promoting health of individuals and communities and economic and environmental sustainability, while their negative effects are also being witnessed. Social benefits provided by an urban park has a positive influence on public welfare, but problems also exist such as the fairness of distributing urban parks or environmental justice, environmental unequal phenomena of urban parks, and health risks.
Consequently, in order to put welfare values of an urban park into sustainable action, it is necessary that the consideration should be made simultaneously for functionality of both an urban park and the socially disadvantaged so that rather than merely the physical provision of urban parks, the government, experts, and communities will participate together in making a series of plans and strategies for an urban park and thus social benefits provided by an urban park can fairly reach every member of society.
Besides, for the sake of the continual improvement of urban park welfare, a qualitative and quantitative study focused on the concept and effects of urban park welfare is expected to be discussed actively and continuously.