Making space for resilient urban well-being

This thesis addresses the need for urban landscapes that provide resilient contributions to inhabitants’ well-being while also limiting impacts on the Earth system. It aims to (1) advance a nuanced understanding of how urban environments relate to urban dwellers’ well-being, and (2) formulate guidelines for planning that supports urban dwellers’ well-being and align with global sustainability. The thesis consists of five empirical studies of Swedish and Danish urban landscapes in which day-to-day experiences and mental disorders were studied as different components of well-being. A variety of spatial and statistical analysis methods were leveraged, including public participation geographic information systems, remote sensing, deep learning, accessibility analysis, and spatial regression. Results convey that urban environments relate to well-being in substantial ways, but these map poorly onto the simplistic urban-nature or urban-rural dichotomies that dominate current discourse. Support of well-being instead seems to depend on spatial conditions comprised of the street network’s topological configuration, the population distribution, and the accessibility of natural settings. Since the 1990s, contrasts have intensified between stressful urban cores that are increasingly full of people and peripheral areas that are “left behind” and high-risk in terms of mental illness. Results show that urban neighbourhoods could contribute to well-being through fulfilment of three guidelines: (1) a balance of residential and daytime populations, (2) no extreme concentration of movement, and (3) accessible natural settings. Strategies in accordance with the guidelines can increase so-called topodiversity, which refers to variation in spatial conditions across an urban landscape that permits support of well-being through different pathways. Increasing topodiversity in both central and peripheral areas Denna avhandling utgår från behovet av stadslandskap som på ett robust sätt stödjer invånarnas välbefinnande samtidigt som de minskar städers belastning på planeten. Den syftar till att (1) främja en nyanserad förståelse av hur stadsmiljöer relaterar till invånarnas välbefinnande, samt (2) att formulera riktlinjer för stadsplanering som avser att stödja stadsinvånares välbefinnande och samtidigt inte äventyrar global hållbarhet. Avhandlingen består av fem empiriska studier av svenska och danska stadslandskap i vilka vardagliga upplevelser och psykisk ohälsa studerades som olik