It’s official – research shows that Londoners living near trees are healthier, wealthier, safer and happier: with our wealth of tree-lined streets, gardens and woods – that’s us!
So let’s take those things one at a time. Trees make us healthier because they deal with pollution and this is reflected in the numbers of people who get respiratory diseases in relation to the number of trees in their community. Then there’s wealthier, well that’s a bit of an obvious one, if there are trees in an area people like it, demand to live there grows and prices rise. What about safer then? The why has not yet been fully explained but areas blessed with trees experience lower crime figures. And lastly happier? Well, this claim is based on figures relating to the use of anti-depressants. It seems that people living with more street trees need less pills (and live longer by the way). If you want some figures check out the following article – but personally, I just know that living with trees makes me happy.
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/01/londoners-living-near-street-trees-get-prescribed-fewer-antidepressants/384559/