From green presence to perceived greenery: Everyday mobility and perceptual availability in Singapore

Source abstract

Urban greenery may be abundant in transit-oriented cities, yet green presence does not necessarily become perceptually available to people moving through it. This paper distinguishes green supply from perceived greenery and green experience to locate the step at which greenery enters awareness during travel. The study combined 21 days of ecological momentary assessment from 68 participants in Singapore, yielding 6794 in-trip moments, and 25 route-reconstruction interviews. Each moment was aligned with two baselines of green supply: a satellite normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from above, and a street-level green view index (GVI) from Google Street View (GSV) for the 5824 moments that imagery covered. A generalized additive mixed model showed a modest but stable association between objective greenness and perceived greenery, carried mainly by within-person variation, alongside substantial between-person differences and a perception–supply gap that agreed in direction across both baselines. The interviews traced three recurring moments—capture, release, and conversion (CRC)—in which mobility held attention, loosened enough for surroundings to be noticed, or let greenery register as comfort, relief, or enjoyment. The study identifies perceptual availability as the condition through which planned greenery becomes, or fails to become, momentary perception and green experience during travel. That condition is set by the work of moving, so the greenness of a city that builds nature into everyday routes depends on where, along the journey, greenery can be met, as much as on how much of it is provided.