Alessandro Rigolon

University of Utah | UOU · Department of City and Metropolitan Planning

This article reviews the growing environmental justice literature documenting access to urban parks across socioeconomic and ethnic groups. The extensive public health and sustainability benefits of parks, combined with the long history of discrimination against people of color in the United States and elsewhere, motivate an update of the literatur...

Environmental gentrification, or the influx of wealthy residents to historically disenfranchised neighborhoods due to new green spaces, is an increasingly common phenomenon around the globe. In particular, investments in large green infrastructure projects (LGIPs) such as New York's High Line have contributed to displacing longterm low-income resid...

Disparities in park provision raise environmental and health justice concerns. With public agencies stepping back from providing environmental amenities in increasingly neoliberal urban regimes, nonprofits in the U.S. have assumed a prominent role in the parks and recreation sector. But very few studies have comprehensively assessed whether and how...

Recent research shows that the establishment of new parks in historically disinvested neighbourhoods can result in housing price increases and the displacement of low-income people of colour. Some suggest that a ‘just green enough’ approach, in particular its call for the creation of small parks and nearby affordable housing, can reduce the chances...

Disadvantaged groups worldwide, such as low-income and racially/ethnically minoritized people, experience worse health outcomes than more privileged groups, including wealthier and white people. Such health disparities are a major public health issue in several countries around the world. In this systematic review, we examine whether green space sh...

Many cities and counties in the U.S. have recently passed equity-oriented policies to improve access to green space for disadvantaged communities. However, the implementation of these policies could limit their intended outcomes, and scant research has focused on their implementation. To address these knowledge gaps, we explored the facilitators an...

Background: Several studies have evaluated whether the distribution of natural environments differs between marginalized and privileged neighborhoods. However, most studies restricted their analyses to a single or handful of cities and used different natural environment measures. Objectives: We evaluated whether natural environments are inequita...

Importance Exposure to natural environments has been associated with health outcomes related to neurological diseases. However, the few studies that have examined associations of natural environments with neurological diseases report mixed findings. Objective To evaluate associations of natural environments with hospital admissions for Alzheimer d...

Most spatial epidemiological studies of nature-health relationships use generalized greenspace measures. For instance, coarse-resolution spatial data containing normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) values are prominent despite criticisms, such as the inability to restrain exposure estimates to public and private land. Non-threatening natur...

The COVID-19 pandemic affected and continues to modify students’ social life and as a result may impact their long-term development. This study is a part of a larger research project focused on the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students. For this manuscript, we employed content analysis to analyze 1,327 quotes related...

Numerous studies have highlighted the physical and mental health benefits of contact with nature, typically in landscapes characterized by plants (i.e., “greenspace”) and water (i.e., “bluespace”). However, natural landscapes are not always green or blue, and the effects of other landscapes are worth attention. This narrative review attempts to ove...

Significant research has shown that gentrification often follows the implementation of greening initiatives (e.g. new parks) in cities worldwide, in what scholars have called ‘green gentrification’. A few other studies in the Global North suggest that greening initiatives might be disproportionately located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods that are...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245327.].

Most spatial epidemiological studies of nature-health relationships use generalized green space measures. For instance, the normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) is prominent despite its criticisms, such as its inability to differentiate more public (accessible) vs. private (largely inaccessible) land. Green space’s capacity to improve heal...

Numerous studies have highlighted the physical and mental health benefits of contact with nature, typically in landscapes characterized by plants (i.e., “greenspace”) and water (i.e., “bluespace”). However, natural landscapes are not always green or blue, and the effects of other landscapes are worth attention. This narrative review attempts to ove...

Natural environments have been linked to decreased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and respiratory disease (RSD) mortality. However, few cohort studies have looked at associations of natural environments with CVD or RSD hospitalization. The aim of this study was to evaluate these associations in a cohort of U.S. Medicare beneficiaries (∼63 mil...

Policy advocacy to address socioeconomic and racial/ethnic inequities in access to urban green space (e.g., parks) in the U.S. and elsewhere are often stymied by two dominant narratives on green space reinforced by politicians, business leaders, and mainstream media. The first argues that green space is “nice to have” but not necessary, and the sec...

While COVID-19 lockdowns have slowed coronavirus transmission, such structural measures also have unintended consequences on mental and physical health. Growing evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment (e.g., blue-green spaces) can improve human health and wellbeing. In this narrative review, we synthesized the evidence about nature'...

The COVID-19 pandemic affected every area of students’ lives, especially their education. Limited research has explored students’ experiences during the pandemic. This study documents how students across seven United States universities viewed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their educational experiences and how these students reacted to the...

A growing literature shows that green space can have protective effects on human health. As a marginalized group, women often have worse life outcomes than men, including disparities in some health outcomes. Given their marginalization, women might have “more to gain” than men from living near green spaces. Yet, limited research has deliberately st...

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected many people's psychological health. Impacts may be particularly severe among socially vulnerable populations such as college students, a group predisposed to mental health problems. Outdoor recreation and visits to greenspaces such as parks offer promising pathways for addressing the mental health chall...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created opportunities for cities to close streets to automobile traffic in the name of public health. Although these interventions promise numerous benefits, neighborhood activists and scholars of color suggest they can perpetuate structurally racist inequities. In this Viewpoint, we implore planners and other city builder...

Greenspace in urban areas may have greater protective health effects than elsewhere. Urban dwellers experience more environmental harmful exposures, attentional demands, and stressors than their suburban/rural counterparts. In this systematic review, we synthesize the results of studies that examined how the greenspace and health relationship varie...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, compliance with public health guidelines to reduce the coronavirus spread became a focal point for park managers. Because parks were among the few spaces open to the public during the pandemic, park users may have been willing to accept the risk of noncompliance in exchange for the benefits of being outdoors. In this s...

[FINAL PUBLISHED VERSION: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155095 ] While COVID-19 lockdowns have slowed coronavirus transmission, such structural measures also have unintended consequences on mental and physical health. Growing evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment (e.g., blue-green spaces) can improve human health and we...

The COVID-19 pandemic may have altered visitation patterns to parks, with potential effects on human health. Little is known about park use early in the pandemic, how park availability influenced use, and whether park visits accelerated COVID-19 spread. Using weekly cell phone location data for 620 U.S. counties, we show park visits decreased by an...

In many cities, high land vacancy has contributed to negative outcomes including visual blight, loss of sense of community and safety, and high crime rates. Although studies show that vacant lot greening programs reduce crime rates in high-vacancy areas, little is known about the impacts of resident-owner-based vacant lot repurposing initiatives on...

Problem, research strategy, and findings. Several U.S. cities have implemented vacant lot greening programs as planning strategies to address decreased tax base, crime, and other issues associated with high land vacancy in marginalized neighborhoods, yet little is known about the benefits of programs that transfer city-owned lots to private owners....

Recent research has shown that spending in urban green spaces including parks has fostered gentrification, a process known as green gentrification. But could ongoing gentrification and gentrification risk also precede local spending on new or existing parks? Focusing on the City of Los Angeles, we investigate whether park investment generated throu...

Large parks—including regional parks, state parks, and national forests and parks—have particular health, social, and environmental benefits. Thus, promoting equal access to large parks is increasingly becoming a goal of environmental justice activists, planners, and policymakers. Disadvantaged populations (e.g., low-income people of color) have wo...

Urban greening initiatives are often linked to enhanced human health and wellbeing, but they can also be a driver of gentrification. To date, few studies have focused on how green gentrification shapes health. In this scoping review, we analyzed existing peer-reviewed research on how greening initiatives in gentrifying neighborhoods impact health,...

Background University students are increasingly recognized as a vulnerable population, suffering from higher levels of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and disordered eating compared to the general population. Therefore, when the nature of their educational experience radically changes—such as sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic—t...

The governance of green and blue spaces (GBS) has gradually shifted from public agencies to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide. Scholars have attributed this shift to the increased adoption of neoliberal governance involving reduced public spending for GBS. Although NGOs' work on GBS has raised environmental justice (EJ) concerns, some...

Many post-industrial U.S. cities have developed programs to promote the greening of publicly-owned vacant lots, including initiatives in which homeowners can purchase nearby lots and turn them into yards or community gardens. These initiatives can result in greener landscapes in marginalized communities, but we know little about the spatial pattern...

BACKGROUND: University students are increasingly recognized as a vulnerable population, suffering from higher levels of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and disordered eating compared to the general population. Therefore, when the nature of their educational experience radically changes—such as sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic—...

Different types of urban green spaces provide diverse benefits for human health and environmental sustainability, but most studies on access to green space focus on neighborhood parks, with less work on smaller or larger green spaces. In this study, we examined sociodemographic differences in access to green spaces of different sizes for 14,385 cen...

Citizen-based policing creates “white space” in areas undergoing environmental gentrification. Citizen-based policing targets minority youth behaviors in parks in these areas. The number of graffiti-related 311 non-emergency calls increased with environmental gentrification. Minority youth may stop using urban parks due to citizen-based policing...

The spread of COVID-19 altered use of public spaces, such as parks, with potential effects on human health and well-being. Little is known about park use during the pandemic, how local features (e.g, park availability) influence use, and whether park visits accelerate COVID-19 spread. Using weekly panel data for 620 U.S. counties, we show park visi...

Condition and care are key expressions of landscape stewardship and are especially important in managing vacant urban lands. In this context, visible signs of stewardship have been associated with increased neighborhood sense of place whereas signs of physical disorder reflect perceived and actual crime. To date, assessments of condition/care and d...

Urban green space use is often associated with improved physical and mental health and lower noncommunicable disease (NCDs) burdens. Factors that influence green space visits have been documented in cities of the Global North, but evidence of urban green space use patterns for cities in the Global South is scarce. The aim of this study is to invest...

Urban vacancy is a persistent problem in many cities across the U.S. and globally. Vacant land greening helps improve neighborhood conditions and initiatives that transfer vacant lots to neighborhood residents can return benefits to where they are most needed. We examined one such initiative, the Chicago Large Lot Program, which allows property own...

Research increasingly shows that greening activity can spur contagious or imitative behavior among nearby neighbors within residential landscapes. Krusky et al. (2015) examined this phenomenon in the context of vacant lots and found support for a "greening hypothesis" that residential yards near vacant lots that were converted to community gardens...

Cities around the world are increasingly developing iconic parks and greenways in historically marginalized neighborhoods to provide social, health, and environmental benefits to their residents. Yet some iconic green space projects trigger increases in housing prices in nearby areas, resulting in the influx of wealthy newcomers and the displacemen...

California state parks are a tremendous, potentially underutilized resource to promote youth health. More than half of young people under 18 in California live within the “visitorshed” of one or more of our 282 state park units, and that percentage is even higher for disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged households. A visitorshed, like a watersh...

Socioeconomic and racial-ethnic inequities in access to recreation settings are widely considered environmental justice (EJ) issues. Researchers in leisure, geography, urban planning, and other disciplines have published important theoretical contributions on EJ related to recreation and parks, but such contributions have not been examined conjoint...

When large parks are built in historically marginalized urban areas, they can contribute to "green gentrification," a process involving increases in housing prices and the influx of new, wealthier and often white residents in low-income communities of color. Research shows that the threat of green gentrification is real in many cities, and it can l...

Background: Growing up in poverty is associated with poor health, and the American Dream of upward mobility is becoming an illusion for many low-income children. But nearby green space can support academic achieve- ment, creativity, and emotional regulation, and these traits might help children rise out of poverty. Objectives: To examine the relati...

Social equity is a key component of sustainable development. The environmental justice movement recognizes the challenges faced by low-income and racially/ethnically diverse communities. As an amenity that can potentially support the quality of the environmental, social, and health of cities, urban green spaces have also been at the forefront of mo...

Urban vacancy is a pressing issue in many cities across the U.S. and globally. A variety of greening strategies have been proposed and implemented for repurposing vacant lots, and their success depends upon the extent to which greening goals address the social needs of residents. The primary contribution of this paper is to explore the relationship...

Background: Scholars and policymakers have criticized public education in developed countries for perpetuating health and income disparities. Several studies have examined the ties between green space and academic performance, hypothesizing that green space can foster performance, and, over time, help reduce such disparities. Although numerous revi...

Researchers have determined many of the factors that make neighborhoods susceptible to gentrification, but we know less about why some gentrification-susceptible neighborhoods gentrify and others do not. Some studies claim that internal neighborhood features such as historic housing stock are the most powerful determinants of gentrification, wherea...

This book crosses disciplinary boundaries to investigate how the benefits of green spaces can be further incorporated in public health. In this regard, the book highlights how ecosystem services provided by green spaces affect multiple aspects of human health and well-being, offering a strategic way to conceptualize the topic. For centuries, schol...

Throughout the years, scholars and practitioners in the environmental and public health fields have experienced communication issues due to differences in disciplinary background, explanatory frameworks, and streams of funding. As a result, public health professionals have rarely discussed the ecosystem services derived from green spaces until rece...

This chapter reviews intersectional approaches to planning urban green spaces in communities. We define intersectional planning as the integration between planning for green spaces and for other planning elements such as transportation, housing, and water management. Approaches that consider “green spaces in their communities” recognize parks and o...

Many topics in urban planning have their share of pros and cons. The balance of two sides of a scale can be illustrated with an item such as a seesaw: there are times when the weight on one side outweighs the weight on the other. Depending on the scale and the objects involved, there are instances where the balance can shift from one side to the ot...

This review examines disparities in access to urban green space (UGS) based on socioeconomic status (SES) and race-ethnicity in Global South cities. It was motivated by documented human health and ecosystem services benefits of UGS in Global South countries and UGS planning barriers in rapidly urbanizing cities. Additionally, another review of Glob...

Like other urban amenities, parks are unevenly distributed throughout cities, with advantaged groups enjoying better access to better parks than more disadvantaged residents. Although such inequities are well documented, we know less about the mechanisms that shape them. We conduct a case study in Denver that includes a GIS analysis and interviews...

Examination of the greenspace-human health relationship operates in at least four dimensions: what is considered greenspace? which moderators and mediators are included? what outcomes are measured? and which units of analysis (e.g., individuals, cities) are studied? We examined three of these four dimensions in a cross-sectional study of 496 of the...

Privately owned parks and public spaces (POPS) are increasingly common in New Urbanist (NU) communities. POPS raise concerns related to environmental privilege, equity, and inclusion; however, no investigation has fully analyzed whether POPS in NU communities cause these same concerns. This is particularly problematic because of NU’s recognition as...

The walkability of streets located near parks matters for public health and environmental justice. Urban parks could help address increasing health concerns in the United States; however, parks tend to be inequitably distributed, and unsafe or uncomfortable routes to parks might be additional impediments to park use. We therefore seek to uncover wh...

Visiting urban parks regularly can provide significant physical and mental health benefits for children and teenagers, but these benefits are tempered by park quality, amenities, maintenance, and safety. Therefore, planning and public health scholars have developed instruments to measure park quality, but most of these tools require costly and time...

Young people − including children and teenagers − are spending less time playing outside in nature than previous generations. This decrease is problematic, as parks can provide young people with physical and mental health benefits. Also, growing health disparities exist between white and ethnic minority young people in the U.S. These concerns motiv...

Informal play in nature is fundamental to children’s health and well-being, providing physical, social, and psychological benefits. Yet children in urban environments frequently lack access to natural spaces for free play. Participatory planning similarly is important across many domains in contributing to children’s well-being. This chapter review...

A growing body of research shows that in diverse societies and cultures, daily contact with nature is an important element of people’s health and well-being. However, because parks are not equitably distributed throughout cities, some urban residents do not have access to these resources and related benefits. Given limited budgets for park acquisit...

Through this study, I aimed to understand how planning policies and practices in Denver, CO have affected the way young people of different demographic groups can access urban parks, and specifically parks with high-quality amenities that are important for young people's park visitation.

Informal play in nature is fundamental to children’s health and well-being, providing physical, social, and psychological benefits. Yet children in urban environments frequently lack access to natural spaces for free play. Participatory planning similarly is important across many domains in contributing to children’s well-being. This chapter review...

In this paper, we analyze planning methodological trends over the last decade, particularly focusing on the opportunities and challenges of integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches in planning through a transformative approach. The transformative approach is a research paradigm through which researchers can face social justice, power, an...

Although repeated contact with nature helps foster mental and physical health among young people, their contact with nature has been diminishing over the last few decades. Also, low-income and ethnic minority children have even less contact with nature than white middle-income children. In this study, we compared accessibility to play in parks for...

In this project, the City of Boulder’s transportation department GO Boulder partnered with Growing Up Boulder (GUB) to better understand opportunities and barriers to transportation options, such as biking and walking, in Boulder as they move toward their Transportation Master Plan Update. GUB engaged middle and high school youth in the mapping act...

This field report describes the greenway network in Boulder, Colorado, highlighting its design and management features that help increase the chances for meaningful experiences in nature for children and youth. Among them are some large-scale strategies that can contribute to redesigning neighborhoods and some small-scale strategies that represent...

The challenge of sustainability and of more equitable societies can only be won through the involvement of future generations. The natural and designed environment, especially public places like schools and playgrounds, can have a fundamental role in enhancing children's ecological literacy. This paper begins with an analysis of the way children de...

This paper proposes a humanistic approach to architectural design, which puts people at the center of the designer's thoughts. Understanding how the built environment influences people's behavior, emotions and activities should be the starting point of design. This implies a reflection on the way space can convey meanings – in its denotative and co...

L’articolo propone un approccio umanistico al progetto architettonico, ponendo le persone al centro del processo di concezione. Comprendere il modo in cui lo spazio influenza il comportamento, le emozioni e le attività delle persone dovrebbe essere il punto di partenza del progetto. Ciò implica una riflessione sui mezzi con i quali lo spazio trasme...