Advancing the capability approach to well-being pathways from access and use of urban green space

Urban green spaces (UGS) are critical for well-being, yet greening efforts often prioritize physical proximity while assuming equal benefit. Challenging this assumption, we apply Amartya Sen's Capability Approach by conceptualizing and empirically assessing residents' access-use-benefit pathways that determine their ability to convert green space availability into realized well-being. Using participatory survey data from Jakarta, we evaluated how travel time, transport modes, and socioeconomic conditions shape individuals' ability to convert spatial access into realized engagement. We operationalize this pathway through a novel time-based benefit-cost ratio approach that measures constrained functioning and reveals inequalities hidden by proximity-based planning. Our results showed that residents with lower socioeconomic status and those reliant on walking or public transport face greater time burdens and constrained access, limiting their ability to benefit from the park meaningfully. These findings demonstrate that spatial proximity alone is insufficient for equitable greening outcomes. To support just and inclusive cities, planners must address structural and temporal barriers hindering the meaningful green space use and the well-being opportunities it enables, particularly those stemming from socioeconomic disadvantage, time constraints, and mobility limitations.