Urban Environmental Psychology. A look at the Contemporary City

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the relationship between the design of the contemporary urban environment with human behavior and quality of life. This is because cities have multiple problems of spatial production, overcrowding, agglomeration, and environmental depredation, overstimulating psychological processes and affecting their perception of habitability and perceived physical and psychological well-being at an individual and collective level. Within this panorama, environmental psychology contributes to the analysis of the relationship of the human being with the sociophysical environment, in such a way that urban, socio-spatial, social-community planning and psycho-environmental processes impact the perception of the immediate environment and the quality of life, influencing spatial resignifications and urban-environmental and psychological sustainability. The preceding indicates that when analyzing the sociophysical conditions of the city that affect health and physical, psychological, and emotional well-being, a large part of its reasons are found within the process of urban-architectural-landscape design, establishing that urban processes, the Spatial ordering, urban recovery, and its planning present a psychological character that impacts on the perceived habitability of the physical-spatial context of socio-environmental significance, and on aspects of urban-environmental and psychological sustainability that are reflected in daily life. This scenario highlights the importance of an urban green infrastructure thanks to its ecological, urban, and psychological values that help to mitigate environmental conflicts, social disagreements, and psychological problems, through access to quality green public spaces in their design and with urban services that support the development and promotion of social plans that benefit various sectors of the urban population. Consequently, is important the analysis of urban processes on socio-environmental and psychological patterns of contemporary urban life, environmental perceptions, spatial resignifications, and ways of appropriating the city.