The design of the human habitat can either promote or oppose healthy living, sustainable lifestyles, and the ability to value nature in people. The goal of this paper is to provide some insights to shape a transdisciplinary agenda for future human habitats that are socially and ecologically sustainable. This is what Connecting Land is. Through a planned workshop, 19 professionals from a variety of complementary backgrounds create a vision for Connecting Land and then discuss policy actions required to achieve such a vision. The produced vision highlights a physically and emotionally healthy community that celebrates local nature in their traditions and rituals. Nature experiences are next door and symbiosis with nature is the constant background of the inhabitants’ habits. The policy actions emerging from the workshop suggest that achieving Connecting Land requires integrated policies that simultaneously address children’s experience-based education, the elimination of physical barriers to nature access, and legal actions to establish the rights of natural elements. To this goal, synergies between the design of natural landscapes, children’s education, and short and long-term people’s wellbeing are worth further exploration in both academia and practice. Sustainable human habitats that promote a healthy and sustainable culture do not need to be utopian.

This study presents MyGävle, a smartphone application that merge long-term tracking of mobility data, heart rate variability and subjective and objective well-being records. Developed to address the challenges faced in researching healthy and sustainable lifestyles, this app serves as a pioneering implementation of Real-life Long-term Methodology (ReaLM). After eight months' use by 257 participants from Gävle (Sweden), we evaluate the completeness, accuracy, validity, and consistency of all data collected. MyGävle produced remarkable results as a ReaLM method. On average, it precisely tracked participants daily locations for approximately 8 h and accurately collected heart-rate variability values throughout the day (12 h) and night (6 h). Participants reported 5115 subjective place experiences (ranging from 160 to 120 per week) and seasonal participation, although declining, is accurate. Our findings indicate that the amount of data collected through smartphone sensors, fitness wristbands and in-app questionnaires is consistent enough to be leveraged for integrated assessments of habits, environmental exposure, and subjective and physiological well-being. Yet, considerable variation exists across individuals; thus diagnostic analysis must precede use of these datasets in any particular research endeavors. By doing so we can maximise the potential of ReaLM research to delve into real life conditions conducive to healthy living habits while also considering broader sustainability goals.

Recent empirical research has confirmed the importance of green infrastructure and outdoor recreation to urban people’s well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, only a few studies provide cross-city analyses. We analyse outdoor recreation behaviour across four Nordic cities ranging from metropolitan areas to a middle-sized city. We collected map-based survey data from residents (n = 469–4992) in spring 2020 and spatially analyse green infrastructure near mapped outdoor recreation sites and respondents’ places of residence. Our statistical examination reveals how the interplay among access to green infrastructure across cities and at respondents’ residential location, together with respondents’ socio-demographic profiles and lockdown policies or pandemic restrictions, affects outdoor recreation behaviour. The results highlight that for pandemic resilience, the history of Nordic spatial planning is important. To support well-being in exceptional situations as well as in the long term, green infrastructure planning should prioritise nature wedges in and close to cities and support small-scale green infrastructure.

Habits are the fundamental basis for many of our daily actions and can be powerful barriers to behavioural change. Still, habits are not included in most narratives, theories, and interventions applied to sustainable behaviour. One reason societies struggle to reach policy goals and people fail to change towards more pro-environmental lifestyles might be that many behaviours are now bound by strong habits that override knowledge and intentions to act. In this perspective article, we provide three arguments for why pro-environmental habits are a needed research agenda in sustainability science: (1) habit theory highlights how behaviour is heavily reliant on automatic processes, (2) the environmental context sets boundary conditions for behaviour, shape habits, and cues action responses, and (3) our habits and past behaviour shape our values and self-identity. These arguments highlight the transformative potential of looking at sustainable behaviours through a habit lens. We believe a research agenda on pro-environmental habits could generate a more holistic understanding of sustainable behaviours and complement today's dominating approaches which emphasize reasoned decisions and intrinsic motivations such as values, norms, and intentions to understand and predict pro-environmental behaviour. We highlight evident knowledge gaps and practical benefits of considering habit theory to promote pro-environmental behaviours, and how habit architecture could be utilized as a strong leverage point when designing, modifying, and building urban environments.

We reply to ‘A relational turn for sustainability science?’ by West et al. We commend West et al. for their salient comments about the relational turn. Yet the article leaves us wondering about the methodological challenges and pragmatics of relational thinking. The authors omitted important tensions in relational thinking discussion about how to assess dynamic socio-ecological systems, and how to lever change for sustainability. Whilst relational thinking is helpful, researchers inevitably need to make strategic choices about where to divide system components if the goal is to systematically assess relations and to promote transformations toward sustainability. Where and how to ‘apply the knife’ inevitably is informed by one’s ontological starting point (view of reality) and personal epistemological beliefs. We outline three questions to be answered in order to more firmly establish relational thinking in sustainability science: If systems and processes are continually unfolding, how do we identify where to lever change for sustainability? In relational thinking, can we explain human action outside of the shared ‘activity of experiencing’? If society and ecology is co-constituted, how can relational approaches be used to understand unfolding and cascading effects in complex systems? We conclude with future directions for a solutions-oriented sustainability science agenda. 

The coronavirus pandemic entailed varying restrictions on access, movement and social behavior in populations around the world. Knowledge about how people coped with "soft-touch" restrictions can inform urban spatial planning strategies that enhance resilience against future pandemics. We analyzed data from an online place based survey on 2845 places across Sweden that respondents abstained from visiting, visited with similar frequency, or visited more frequently in spring 2020 as compared to before the pandemic. In spatial logistic regression models, we relate geographical and sociodemographic properties of places (fields, forests, water, residential population density and daytime population density) to self-perceived changes in wellbeing from visiting the given place less or more often, respectively. Abstaining from visiting places with natural features located in areas of high residential density was associated with a self-perceived negative influence on wellbeing. Yet, fields, forests and water were strongly associated with places people claimed wellbeing benefits from during pandemic restrictions. The further a visited place was from the respondent's home, the more likely it was to have a positive wellbeing influence. As an illustrative case, we map our models onto the landscape of Stockholm, showing that some neighborhoods are likely more resilient than others when coping with pandemic restrictions. Both the most and least resilient neighborhoods span the socio-economic spectrum. Urban planning will do well to enable equitable, easy access to natural settings by foot or bike, to increase pandemic preparedness as well as support climate change mitigation and biodiversity protection.

Limited exposure to direct nature experiences is a worrying sign of urbanization, particularly for children. Experiencing nature during childhood shapes aspects of a personal relationship with nature, crucial for sustainable decision-making processes in adulthood. Scholars often stress the need to ‘reconnect’ urban dwellers with nature; however, few elaborate on how this can be achieved. Here, we argue that nature reconnection requires urban ecosystems, with a capacity to enable environmental learning in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains, i.e., learning that occurs in the head, heart and hands of individuals. Drawing on environmental psychology, urban ecology, institutional analysis and urban planning, we present a theoretical framework for Human–Nature Connection (HNC), discuss the importance of nurturing HNC for children, elaborate on the role of property-rights and the importance of creating collective action arenas in cities for the promotion of urban resilience building. As values and environmental preconceptions underly environmental behavior, there are limits to achieving HNC in cities, as presumptive sentiments toward nature not always are positive. We end by discussing the role of new digital technologies in relation to HNC, and conclude by summarizing the major points brought forward herein, offering policy recommendations for HNC as a resilience strategy that can be adopted in cities throughout the world.

Urban nature is and will be the most common provider of nature interactions for humankind. The restorative benefits of nature exposure are renown and creating human habitats that simultaneously support people’s wellbeing and ecological sustainability is an urgent priority. In this study, we investigate how the relationship between environmental attitudes and healthy ecosystems influences restorative experiences combining a place-based online survey with geographical data on ecosystem health in Stockholm (Sweden). Using spatial regression, we predict the 544 restorative experiences (from 325 respondents), with people’s environmental attitudes, natural land covers, ecosystem health, and the statistical interactions among these variables as predictors. Our results show that restorative experiences can happen anywhere in the urban landscape, but when they occur in natural environments, the combined levels of biodiversity and ecological connectivity are better predicting factor than the mere presence of nature. That is, healthy ecosystems seem to be more important than just any nature for restorative experiences. Moreover, the statistical interaction between one’s environmental attitudes and natural environments predict almost all restorative experiences better than when these variables are independent predictors. This suggests that there is synergistic compatibility between environmental attitudes and healthy ecosystems that triggers restorative processes. We call this synergy regenerative compatibility. Regenerative compatibility is an unexploited potential that emerges when people’s attitudes and ecosystems are aligned in sustainability. We consider regenerative compatibility a valuable leverage point to transform towards ecologically sustainable and healthy urban systems. To this end, we encourage multifaceted policy interventions that regenerate human-nature relationships holistically rather than implement atomistic solutions.

Air travel accounts for a major share of individual greenhouse gas emissions, particularly for people in high-income countries. Until recently, few have reduced flying because of climate concerns, but currently, a movement for staying on the ground is rising. Sweden has been a focal point for this movement, particularly during 2018–2019, when a flight tax was introduced, and air travel reduction was intensely discussed in the media. We performed semi-structured interviews with Swedish residents, focusing primarily on individuals who have reduced flying because of its climate impact. We explore how such individual transformation of air travel behavior comes about, and the phases and components of this process. Applying a framework of sustainability transformation, we identify incentives and barriers in personal and political spheres. We show that internalized knowledge about climate change and the impact of air travel is crucial for instigating behavioral change. Awareness evokes negative emotions leading to a personal tipping point where a decision to reduce or quit flying is made. However, the process is often counteracted by both personal values and political structures promoting air travel. Even individuals with a strong drive to reduce flying feel trapped in social practices, norms and infrastructures. Hence, we argue that personal and political spheres interact complexly and to reduce flying at larger scales, interventions are needed across spheres, e.g., change of norms, effective policy instruments and better alternatives to air travel.

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic caused countries across the world to implement measures of socialdistancing to curb spreading of COVID-19. The large and sudden disruptions to everyday life thatresult from this are likely to impact well-being, particularly among urban populations that live indense settings with limited public space. In this paper, we argue that during these extraordinarycircumstances, urban nature offers resilience for maintaining well-being in urban populations, whileenabling social distancing. We discuss more generally the critical role of urban nature in times ofcrisis. Cities around the world need to take the step into the 21st century by accepting crises as anew reality and finding ways to function during these disturbances. Thus, maintaining or increasingspace for nature in cities and keeping it accessible to the public should be part of the sustainabilityagenda, aiming simultaneously to strive towards SDG 3 (good health and well-being), and SDG 11(sustainable and resilient cities).