A new international study has found that homes with gardens and neighbourhoods with easy access to parks can meaningfully lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, adding a fresh public health argument to the case for greenspace in urban planning.
The study, titled "Private garden exposure and public park access in relation to type-2 diabetes incidence: a UK Biobank cohort study" and published in the journal BMC Public Health, was led by the University of Queensland. It tracked around 19,000 people and measured how many parks were located within 800 metres of their homes. It found that people with a substantial home garden were 6.8 per cent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, while those living within 800 metres of multiple parks had a 5.6 per cent lower risk.
Dr Chinonso Odebeatu, who led the research, said the findings should influence how cities are planned, particularly as more high-density housing gets built. He said greenspace is not simply about aesthetics, and that residential developments without adequate green cover could carry a real cost to public health.
Dr Nicholas Osborne, who also worked on the study, pointed to several possible explanations. Physical activity in a garden, exposure to sunlight and vitamin D, and the mental health benefits of spending time outdoors could all play a role. He also noted that outdoor exposure to a wider range of microbes may support gut health and immunity, both of which are linked to metabolic conditions such as diabetes.
A familiar problem in India's cities
The findings land at a time when India is grappling with its own diabetes burden, and the scale of it makes the Australian research hard to set aside. The ICMR-INDIAB study, one of the largest population-based surveys conducted in the country, estimated that India has around 101 million people living with diabetes and another 136 million with prediabetes as of 2023. The same study found diabetes prevalence was consistently higher in urban areas than rural ones, a pattern researchers have linked to the lifestyle shifts that come with dense city living.
This is where real estate and public health begin to intersect. India's cities are falling well short of the greenspace benchmarks planners consider necessary for healthy living. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 9 square metres of accessible green space per person, while India's own URDPFI guidelines call for 10 to 12 square metres. In practice, most metros sit far below both. Mumbai offers roughly 1.2 square metres of open space per resident, Chennai around 0.8 square metres, and Bengaluru about 2 square metres, according to figures cited by WRI India. London, by comparison, provides about 32 square metres per resident, and New York around 27 square metres.
Beyond a lifestyle amenity
For developers, the research adds weight to what has largely been treated as a lifestyle amenity. Gardens, courtyards and landscaped open areas are often positioned in marketing material around wellness and aesthetics, but this study suggests they may carry measurable health value for residents, particularly in the high-density apartment formats that dominate new supply across Indian metros.
Township and integrated community projects that have prioritised parks, walking trails and communal green spaces are likely to find renewed relevance in this context. Farmland and managed land ownership models, which offer buyers direct access to open, cultivated land, may also benefit from being positioned around this kind of long-term health value rather than purely as an investment or lifestyle choice.
Enforcement, not just intent
Urban local bodies and planning authorities may find fresh justification too for enforcing existing open space norms more strictly. As research from Socio.Health on India's open spaces has noted, plot-level gardens and communal breathing areas within housing societies are routinely sacrificed for additional parking or built-up area, even where regulations require them. Given the diabetes burden already facing urban India, tightening that enforcement could carry benefits that extend well beyond quality of life.
As Indian cities continue to densify, the message from this research is straightforward. Greenspace is not a finishing touch to be added once the essentials are in place. It may need to be treated as one of them.
