Is landscape life?

Landscape, a cultural as much as an ecological and geographical construct, is the habitat for humankind, the place where people live out their lives. The European Landscape Convention defines it as “an area, as perceived by people”, stressing the significance of “everyday” landscapes in which people live and go about their daily activities; it identifies such landscapes as important for people’s quality of life, their wellbeing and their individual and cultural identity (Council of Europe, 2000, pp 8-11, 23). For many thousands of years, cities and towns have attracted people as places to live: centres of culture and transaction, sophisticated places for dwelling, working and recreation. Yet as we reach the point, globally, where more people live in towns and cities than in rural locations, new questions are being raised about how well such environments serve as human habitat. We live in an era of increasing sophistication in our understanding of, and demands for, human health and wellbeing but it is also an era of rising concern over growing patterns of poor health in comparatively wealthy and developed nations. This has given new impetus to interest in links between environment, health and quality of life and this is the focus of my chapter.