Sugiyama and colleagues shift the question from whether green neighbourhoods correlate with health to how such relationships may operate. Their survey of adults in Adelaide combines perceived neighbourhood greenness with physical and mental health, recreational and transport walking, social coherence and local interaction. Perceived greenness is associated with better physical and mental health, yet the mechanisms differ: recreational walking substantially accounts for the physical-health relationship, whereas the association with mental health persists after walking and social coherence are considered. This residual relation leaves space for restorative processes without treating restoration as the only explanation. The paper’s conceptual strength lies in decomposing environmental benefit into behavioural, social and psychological pathways. Its methodological operation is therefore mediational: neighbourhood qualities become meaningful through what they enable residents to do, feel and sustain collectively. The wider bridge is to urban design and public-space research, where greenery can be understood simultaneously as movement infrastructure, social context and perceptual resource.
