Human-Environment Interactions Based on Biophilia Values in an Urban Context: Case Study

Abstract

Biophilia is the idea that claims on the dependency of human identity on the relationship with the nature. The idea has been developed in recent years and can consist of nine tendencies addressed in this paper. The study involves the understanding of biophilia values with respect to people’s views regarding to the urban park specifications. The people points of view about trees are investigated in the urban parks of Bradford (U.K.) through structured interviews and completing a designed questionnaire. The results are analyzed according to the biophilia tendencies and a quantitative analysis is undertaken to explore the popular attitudes considering ethnic groups (Asian and White British). In addition, the results are considered as the input to the proposed analytical hierarchical process model, which is developed to assist urban managers as a helping tool to understand people’s view of their surrounding environment in a structured way.