In plain sight: Green views from the residence and urbanites’ neighborhood satisfaction

Recent decades have seen theoretical and empirical support being generated for a positive relationship between exposure to nature and human well-being. However, exposure to nature is diverse. It can stem from spending time in green spaces, or simply from being able to observe greenery, such as from inside one’s residence. The literature has devoted limited attention to the extent to which green views as a specific type of nature exposure contribute to satisfaction and well-being in urban areas. Therefore, this paper examines whether having satisfactory green views from within an urban residence is positively associated with the residents’ neighborhood satisfaction. We use survey data from a large probability sample (n = 32,552) of respondents from 13 cities in the Flanders region of Belgium to run four binary logistic regression models that estimate the probability of reporting specific levels of neighborhood satisfaction. Each model is weighted to be representative of the urban population in these cities (N = 1,344,327) and statistically controls for the perceived presence of sufficient greenery in the neighborhood, 47 other self-reported neighborhood attributes, personal characteristics, and socio-demographic information. We find that urbanites who are more satisfied with the green views from their residence are more likely to report high neighborhood satisfaction. Our findings support the hypothesis that simply viewing greenery from within one’s residence improves neighborhood satisfaction.