By Megan Maurer, Alyssa Solvie, Oriol Garcia-Antunez, Elizabeth Cook, Natalie Gulsrud, and Anton Stahl Olafsson

Green and blue space in Nordhavn, part of the Østerbro neighborhood. Photo credit: M. Maurer.

This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.

It is widely accepted that access to and use of urban green and blue spaces—such as parks, sports fields, beaches, and vacant lots—offer many benefits for people’s physical and mental well-being, as well as opportunities to reconnect people with nature. While much research has focused on the features that contribute to positive experiences in these spaces, researchers have given less attention to different kinds of negative experiences and who they affect. Importantly, these drawbacks can make green and blue spaces feel unattractive or psychologically inaccessible to some people, discouraging visits and use. At a time when societies are becoming less connected to nature, and when cities around the world are losing urban green and blue spaces, it is critical to understand what pushes people away from urban nature. This understanding is necessary to ensure that the remaining urban nature— which is increasingly limited—can provide well-being benefits for everyone.

In our study, we asked residents in the Østerbro neighborhood of Copenhagen, Denmark, to identify local green and blue spaces they disliked and to explain why. By systematically analyzing these open-ended responses, we identified social, ecological, and technological factors that contribute to people’s perceived problems and unpleasant experiences in urban green and blue spaces.

Participants’ responses showed that negative experiences are shaped by the interaction of social, ecological, and technological features of these spaces. Common contributors to negative experiences—such as ambience, aesthetics, and maintenance—often emerged from the combination of these factors. This shows that to better understand negative perceptions and experiences in urban green and blue spaces, we need to move beyond approaches that focus only on ecological aspects (such as ecosystem disservices) and adopt more holistic frameworks that capture how social, ecological, and technological factors interact.

Finally, when we examined whether dislikes were related to characteristics such as gender, immigration status, or age, we found that dislikes were largely shared across all groups. In other words, people from very different backgrounds reported similar factors contributing to negative experiences. This suggests that focusing on what people commonly dislike—factors that may discourage visits and use—could be an effective strategy. Because people tend to agree on these dislikes, actions that address shared problems and unpleasant experiences could benefit a wide range of users.