Promoting Green Urbanism in Nigerian Purlieus as Therapy for Psychological Wellbeing/Health

Abstract

Green urbanism highlight on reducing unforeseen dangers to human wellbeing through exposure to various environmental hazards, poor living conditions and other challenges associated with purlieus. This paper examined the influence of green urbanism on psychological wellbeing (physical symptoms and positive functioning) of residents in urban sprawls. Participants were 240 residents of purlieus’ in Ota, Ogun, Nigeria randomly selected to participate in the study. They completed standardized questionnaires which measured demographic variables, Physical symptoms and Positive Functioning. Data analysis was done using inferential statistics. Findings indicated that Physical Symptoms (PS) means score was found to increase as number of children in the family increases. Positive functioning (PF), among the participants were found to decrease as the number of children in the families increases. Physical symptoms (PS) increases as the length of stay in the houses increases among the participants while Positive functioning (PF) was found to be decreasing. Most of the houses were constructed in the 2000s yet they do not meet the standard practice in sustainable buildings. The poorly built houses are situated in unhygienic environment where basic amenities are unavailable. The implication of this is that the occupants of these building are prone to high level of physical symptoms such as stomach upset, headache, backache, have trouble sleeping, diarrhea, dizziness, tiredness and fatigue. The result of the study has addressed health related issues in built environment as well as showed that built environment should have an organic sustainable content (green living initiatives) for healthy living and psychological wellbeing.