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A social–ecological assessment of vacant lots in New York City
... To accurately capture the actual conditions of vacant parcels, field observation is typically required when assessing site characteristics. Researchers' analysis of the results also enables them to determine how land characteristics, neighbourhood characteristics, and land cover relate to one another [33]. Additionally, it is advantageous to involve communities in this process because they may have useful local knowledge that the researchers are unaware of. ...
... In this regard, several studies have highlighted the use of GIS applications in mapping and assessing vacant land. Kremer et al. [33] used this approach in a land cover classification study to identify vacant parcels' social and ecological characteristics in New York City. Similarly, McPhearson et al. [2] developed an assessment tool to capture vacant parcel heterogeneity. ...
... To accurately capture the actual conditions of vacant parcels, field observation is typically required when assessing site characteristics. Researchers' analysis of the results also enables them to determine how land characteristics, neighbourhood characteristics, and land cover relate to one another [33]. Additionally, it is advantageous to involve communities in this process because they may have A typology of vacant land can depict patterns and ecological characteristics that help identify potential issues and select the best kind of greening strategy. ...
Urban vacant land availability offers revitalisation opportunities in the form of improving ecological functions. However, less is known about the available planning tools with which to mobilise this effort. Hence, this systematic review adopts ecological perspectives to explore planning tools to revitalise urban vacant land. The search strategy employs Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to track original research on vacant urban land from selected electronic databases. The search revealed thirty-six studies focusing on substance-oriented planning tools (indicator systems, Geographic Information System (GIS), models/simulations, field surveys, and experiments) and process-oriented tools (questionnaire surveys, the Delphi method, focus groups, and interviews). This review suggests that future studies adopt hybrid planning tools that combine the essence of substance- and process-oriented tools. Furthermore, as a framework, it recommends taking a stepwise approach at various planning stages to revive vacant land. Additional studies from the perspective of growing cities are necessary to provide insights into urban vacant land revitalisation planning, considering the competing objectives of economic prosperity and green space preservation.
... Vacant lots in cities include unused land that has remained free of structures, land with abandoned or partially destroyed structures (Bowman and Pagano, 2000), or unused land covered with spontaneous vegetation (Newman et al., 2018). They are usually concentrated in low-income neighborhoods (Anderson and Minor, 2017;Kremer et al., 2013), however, they may also be present in shrinking city centers (Bontje, 2004;Rink and Siemund, 2016). Their perception, defined as an opinion, attitude, or impression (Botzat et al., 2016;Mathey et al., 2018) is usually negative (Hollander et al., 2009;Kim, 2016), being associated with issues of health, increased fire hazards risks, and higher incidences of crime and illegal activities (e.g., drug use), lowering community well-being, and resulting in real estate price decreases (Garvin et al., properly managed vacant lots that support recreation, and whose aesthetic value and biological diversity prove valuable for local communities' health and well-being (Anderson and Minor, 2017;Fuller et al., 2007), which may reduce local crime incidence (Branas et al., 2011;Hadavi et al., 2021), or that become a catalyst for community involvement and personal attachment (Németh and Langhorst, 2014). ...
... Their perception, defined as an opinion, attitude, or impression (Botzat et al., 2016;Mathey et al., 2018) is usually negative (Hollander et al., 2009;Kim, 2016), being associated with issues of health, increased fire hazards risks, and higher incidences of crime and illegal activities (e.g., drug use), lowering community well-being, and resulting in real estate price decreases (Garvin et al., properly managed vacant lots that support recreation, and whose aesthetic value and biological diversity prove valuable for local communities' health and well-being (Anderson and Minor, 2017;Fuller et al., 2007), which may reduce local crime incidence (Branas et al., 2011;Hadavi et al., 2021), or that become a catalyst for community involvement and personal attachment (Németh and Langhorst, 2014). Concerning 'unattended sites with vegetation' (Kim et al., 2018), potential reuse solutions revolve around better-maintained green spaces, community gardens (Kremer et al., 2013;Németh and Langhorst, 2014), or infill developments (Eichhorn et al., 2021). However, limiting factors in reuse projects include insufficient time and money allocated for participatory planning or the residents' negative perceptions of vacant lots (Németh and Langhorst, 2014;Pediaditi et al., 2010). ...
... the lots primarily as a shortcut or for walking dogs. The available literature shows that vacant lots are used by those living in the area, indicating an everyday use of informal greenery (Rupprecht, 2017;Sikorska et al., 2020) and that the less educated and lower-income residents are more likely to live in the vicinity of vacant lots (e.g., Kremer et al., 2013). Moreover, due to the informal nature of vegetated vacant lots and fewer use restrictions (compared to formal parks), vacant lots are benefitting especially the socially weak and marginalized population (Rall and Haase, 2011;Rupprecht, 2017). ...
... Reinvented public space will be shared as a threshold space (Mariani and Barron 2014). Increasing urban green and open spaces indicated the potential for social and ecological types of transformation (Kremer et al. 2013). Defining the ecological and social aspects of undefined lands in the urban landscape environment was determined by Jacobs (1961), Holling (2001, Walker et al. (2006), Folke (2006), Cadenasso et al. (2007), Pickett et al. (2007), considering heterogeneous patches that have different combinations in the landscape. ...
... According to (Naghibi et al. 2020a), a large body of literature recognizes that these spaces can have negative connotations in addition to positive aspects (Franck and Stevens 2007;Gandy 2016;Kim et al. 2015;Li et al. 2018;Mahmoudi Farahani and Maller 2019;Newman et al. 2016;Zhang et al. 2019). Vacancies can be as a useful resource for local communities, economies, and the environment (Bowman and Pagano 2004;Kremer et al. 2013). As a result, there has been an increase in the transformation of informal spaces into formal ones in the landscape (Burkholder 2012;Rupprecht and Byrne 2014). ...
... Therefore, cities have created their definitions of vacant land, which differ among jurisdictions (Kremer et al. 2013). ...
Vacant spaces present affluent areas for the urban landscape. Considering these spaces from a resilience perspective is an effective strategy. This research seeks to assist decision-makers in assessing landscape resilience and drawing on landscape selection process requirements for changes. The current research investigates the review of previous studies and develops a contextual relationship-based model to analyze critical aspects through experts' opinions. The investigation approach was inspired by interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and MICMAC software. MICMAC analysis considered the direct and possible relationships of variables in the future, while the ISM technique discovered the hierarchy of these variables and their relationship with the main areas. Flexibility has the most effectiveness, while Activity has been affected by the most properties. Furthermore, even though it is significant, urban systems lose their flexibility and adaptability in the long run by focusing entirely on engineering measures.
... These areas, therefore, play a multifunctional role in aggregating several ecosystem services, including provisioning (e.g., food production), regulating (e.g., carbon storage, air pollution removal, local temperature regulation, runoff mitigation), supporting (e.g., habitat provision for biodiversity, pollination), and cultural (e.g., recreation) services [58]. Thus, characterizing urban vacant lots in terms of land cover patterns is important in order to achieve a better understanding the processes of vacancy in cities and to contribute to the design of alternative uses of these sites [53]. This approach can temporarily and partially aid parties in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially number 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), which aim at developing inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities [59]. ...
... A novel highlight of the present study is that it details the vegetation cover of vacant lots. Most studies usually make use of vegetation and greenness indices (NDVI-Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, e.g., [53,58,60]). Hence, land cover has been characterized through variation in vegetation quality. ...
The green infrastructure of urban lots performs socio-ecological functions and provides several ecosystem services (ESs) in urban environments. By assessing the land cover patterns of such sites, one can deduce ecological functions and potential ESs. We represented the various land cover combinations of lots by mapping and classifying the vegetation quality of 2828 lots in the city of Belo Horizonte, Southeast Brazil. We performed cluster analysis of land cover with weighting according to ecological functions, potential for ES provision, and performance. Most lots (1024, 36.21%) were in the moderate vegetation quality class (trees/native vegetation between 25% and 50% or >50% herbaceous-shrubby vegetation), which included the largest plot of 383,300 m2 and a median plot size of 403 m2. A total of 244 (8.63%) lots were in the highest vegetation quality class (trees/native vegetation between >50% and 100%). The lots included diverse vegetation cover combinations of up to ten land cover types, with two dominant types: herbaceous-shrubby vegetation and tree clumps. Among the four land cover patterns obtained, those covered by tree clusters (1193 lots; 42.18%) had the highest ecological performance and the greatest potential for regulating and supporting ESs. This cluster had the highest average land cover of tree clumps (49%) and the highest averages for native vegetation formations (2–6%). Our study showed a variety of land cover patterns and an expressive percentage of lots with capabilities to provide ecological functions and ESs, which can support urban sustainability policies that have yet to be addressed.
... The effective transformation of urban vacant land (UVL) has broad prospects and significant advantages for improving urban economy, ecological environment, transformational development, and urban planning [1][2][3][4][5]. The term UVL is broad and diverse but is usually defined as under-utilized lands including bare soil, derelict land, abandon buildings and structures, brownfields, greenfields, uncultivated land or marginal agricultural land, and recently razed land [6]. ...
... We used the following methods to accomplish this goal and ensure the quality of the final results: (1) During model training, we installed the GDAL library for Python, enabling the use of TIFF data for both image input during model training and the segmentation results of the model output. (2) We found fine points on both the edges and interior of the images. To reduce the amount of potential error when converting raster to vector files, we employed the ArcScan tool for raster refinement procedures. ...
Many cities worldwide have large amounts of industrial vacant land (IVL) due to development and transformation, posing a growing problem. However, the large-scale identification of IVL is hindered by obstacles such as high cost, high variability, and closed-source data. Moreover, it is difficult to distinguish industrial vacant land from operational industrial land based solely upon image features. To address these issues, we propose a method for the large-scale automatic identification of IVL. The framework uses deep learning to train remote-sensing images of potential industrial vacant land to generate a semantic segmentation model and further use population density and surface temperature data to filter model predictions. The feasibility of the proposed methodology was validated through a case study in Tangshan City, Hebei Province, China. The study indicates two major conclusions: (1) The proposed IVL identification framework can efficiently generate industrial vacant land mapping. (2) HRNet exhibits the highest accuracy and strongest robustness after training compared with other semantic segmentation backbone networks, ensuring high-quality performance and stability, as evidenced by a model accuracy of 97.84%. Based on the above advantages, the identification framework provides a reference method for various countries and regions to identify industrial vacant land on a large scale, which is of great significance for advancing the research and transformation of industrial vacant land worldwide.
... There is no single, widely recognized definition of UVL [7,13]. However, the literature on UVL is vast and discusses the topics from different disciplinary angles, including urban geography, city planning, real estate, urban design, and landscape architecture [6,7]. Most recent definitions of vacant land encompass a variety of land conditions, including recently razed land, derelict land, land with abandoned buildings and structures, brownfields, bare soils, greenfields, and agricultural soils [6]. ...
... However, the literature on UVL is vast and discusses the topics from different disciplinary angles, including urban geography, city planning, real estate, urban design, and landscape architecture [6,7]. Most recent definitions of vacant land encompass a variety of land conditions, including recently razed land, derelict land, land with abandoned buildings and structures, brownfields, bare soils, greenfields, and agricultural soils [6]. ...
Vacant land in residual urban areas is a crucial resource to tackle the current climate and housing crises. In this study, we present the development of a geodatabase to determine the occurrence of vacant land in the urban core of Oklahoma City, USA (OKC), and assess its potential for infill housing. As a starting point, we define urban vacant land through a literature review. We present a description of the case study’s social and urbanistic context by highlighting its relevance to this study. We explain the methodology for the development of the geodatabase to quantify residual urban land in OKC’s urban core. We examine the spatial distribution and recurring characteristics of vacant parcels using QGIS, Python scripting for Rhinoceros 3D, and aerial imagery. We find that small parcels have higher vacancy rates than average-sized parcels and there is a correlation between higher vacancy rates and proximity to downtown and brownfields. Finally, we discuss the implications of the findings by assessing the urban vacant land potential for residential development and its contribution to OKC’s housing provision. Under all the proposed scenarios, the considered developable vacant land in the urban core could entirely fulfill the need for new housing units for the entire city.
... A principal obstacle to release the infill potential is a lack of information on amount, spatial distribution, market availability and mobilisation processes of IDPs. While some studies from the US can draw on existing inventories of tax assessor records linked to cadastral data (Kremer et al. 2013;Landis et al. 2006;Smith et al. 2017), in European countries such a database is often unavailable. In 2014, only nine European countries had comparable data on IDPs at the national level (Van Long et al. 2014). ...
... Although the aim of this study was to identify and analyse vacant lots with potential for residential infill, it must be emphasised that they are also of interest for ecological, biodiversity and climatic reasons, as well as for community benefit (Kim et al. 2018;Kremer et al. 2013;Smith et al. 2017;Bibby et al. 2020). Thus, undeveloped plots may be in some cases the better decision. ...
Infill development policies have been widely adopted as strategies to reduce urban sprawl and to promote sustainable urban transformation. However, little empirical data are available to analyse infill processes and to facilitate building activity on infill potentials. This is especially true for small-scale residential infill, which often takes place on vacant or underused lots as soft densification. To address this issue, a geospatial method is presented that enables automatic detection of vacant lots for large areas. Cadastral data are used to analyse spatio-temporal development for the period 2011–21 in a German study area, containing large cites as well as rural municipalities. The results show that every fourth vacant lot was mobilised since 2011. However, additional vacant lots emerged in rural areas as new residential development areas are not fully built-up, resulting in a net increase of vacant lots. Although the quantity of vacant lot areas in 2021 suggests a high potential for residential infill, the main development on these infill sites is expected to promote additional single-family housing rather than more dense structures. Practice relevance Automatic identification and monitoring of infill potentials and development are important both for policymaking and for local planning practitioners. For small municipalities with little financial capacities, the approach can provide an overview of their vacant lots and can serve as a basis for strategic planning decisions. For the regional or national level, a yearly monitoring schedule can be established at little cost. Although the approach proves to be robust regarding its precision and is promising for a nationwide application, the data availability for the whole of Germany is awaited and the method needs to be optimised to implement the workflow in practice.
... Barriers regarding UCGs are related to finances, external damage, space, water, soil, organizational structure, communication, interpersonal relationships, and participation [70][71][72]. In many articles, ecosystem disservices have been described as harmful consequences of ecological change or as deficient ecosystem services [73,74]. Ecosystem disservices belong mainly to four fields [73]. ...
... Finally, people's quality of life is reduced by ecosystem disservices, which in turn leads to negative emotions such as anxiety and depression [52]. Studies have pointed out that many of the barriers to the occurrence and sustainability of behavior are due to ecosystem disservices [74]. Recent studies have reported that UCGs' ecosystem disservices obstruct the development of UCGs and negatively impact gardening behavior. ...
Abstract: Urban community gardens (UCGs), greenspace cultivated and managed for vegetables by local communities, provide substantial ecosystem services (ES) and are warmly welcomed by residents. However, they also have many ecosystem disservices (EDS) and are almost always refused by the decision-makers of the government, especially in China. Better understanding the residents’ perceived ES and EDS and the impact on the behavioral intention (BI) toward UCGs is of great value to solve the conflicts between residents and the government concerning UCGs and to develop sustainable UCGs. Following the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we measured perceived ES/EDS, attitudes (ATT), perceived behavioral control (PBC), subjective norm (SN), and BI of 1142 residents in Changsha, China, and investigated their direct and indirect causal relationships using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that: (1) ATT, PBC, and SN significantly and positively impact the BI of UCGs and together explained 54% of the variation of BI. (2) The extended TPB model with additional components of perceived ED/EDS improved the explanatory ability of the model, explaining 65% of the variance of BI. Perceived ES and perceived EDS showed significant direct positive and negative impacts on UCGs, respectively. They also indirectly impacted BI by influencing ATT, PBC, and SN. The findings of this study can extend our understanding of residents’ attitudes, behavior, and driving mechanism toward UCGs, and can help decision makers to design better policies for UCG planning and management.
... Az informális városi/települési zöldterek (informal urban greenspace -továbbiakban IVZT) fogalma nehezen de niálható (Kremer, Hamstead, McPhearson 2013;Stanford et al. 2022), egyrészt mivel jellemző rájuk az időbeli és térbeli változások (Kim, Rupprecht, Furuya 2018;Rupprecht, Byrne 2014b). Meghatározásuk arra fókuszál, hogy e területek közös tulajdonsága a fenntartás és a használat szabályozásának hiánya (Luo, Patuano 2023). ...
Az elmúlt évtizedek természeti, társadalmi és gazdasági folyamatai egyre inkább a fenntarthatóság felé terelték a városfejlesztés fókuszát. A településekre jelenleg is markáns hatásokkal bíró klímaváltozás, illetve a pandémiás lezárások egyaránt sürgető térhasználati, településfejlesztési- és rendezési kérdésekre világítottak rá. A városok zöldterületi és -felületi fejlesztései egyre inkább felértékelődnek, egyre nagyobb hangsúlyt kaphatnak azok a zöldfelületek, melyek hivatalosan nem rekreációs céllal jönnek létre. Kutatásunk célja ezen informális városi zöldterek típusainak, szerepének, hasznosíthatóságának és átalakulásának vizsgálata volt Szeged példáján, amelynek révén e területek is bevezetésre kerülhetnének a hazai városfejlesztési diskurzusba. Munkánk során kilenc informális városi zöldtér-típust azonosítottunk a nemzetközi eredményekhez igazodva, amelyeket a szegedi mintaterületeken térinformatikai és terepi megfigyelés módszerekkel vizsgáltuk. Az informális zöldterek állapota nem állandó, átalakulásukat természeti vagy emberi tényezők negatívan vagy pozitívan alakíthatják. Mindez egyfajta városi zöldterületi körforgást eredményez. Megfigyeltük az informális városi zöldterek formálissá válását, mely a térhasználók összetételének időbeli változását eredményezi és összekapcsolható a dzsentrifikáció inváziós-szukcessziós-ciklus modelljével is.
... Conversely, some scholars have highlighted that vacant sites may offer environmental benefits. Findings from previous studies indicate that vacant parcels could undergo the natural restoration process, leading to vegetative cover that supports ecological processes and provides ecosystem services (Kremer et al., 2013). Robinson and Lundholm's (2012) study suggested that vacant sites with spontaneous vegetation exhibited higher levels of ecosystem services provision compared to managed lawns and semi-natural urban forests. ...
Vacant land stands as a ubiquitous feature within our urban landscapes, exerting significant influence on local environmental, social, and economic systems, thus affecting neighborhood sustainability. However, existing studies often produce conflicting results regarding the impact of vacant land. This inconsistency largely stems from the assumption that the associations between vacant land and neighborhood sustainability remain stationary across space, overlooking potential spatial variability. To address this gap, this study uses Chicago as the sample and investigates spatial variations in the associations between vacant land and neighborhood sustainability, with a focus on the discrepancies between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged neighborhoods. The results reveal substantial spatial variations in these associations, primarily influenced by neighborhood socioeconomic patterns, urban structure, and local sustainability levels. Consequently, this study underscores the need for spatially adaptive strategies to address the vacant land issue and foster sustainable neighborhood development. Furthermore, this study advocates repurposing vacant land in disadvantaged neighborhoods to promote social equity and advance citywide sustainable development goals.
... Past literature has focused on identifying how IGS are used by people for recreation (Rupprecht et al., 2016, Rupprecht, 2017, Brun et al., 2018, Farahani and Maller, 2019, Sikorski et al., 2021, urban foraging (Landor-Yamagata et al., 2018), establishing temporary uses (Nemeth and Langhorst, 2014), and community and/or guerrilla gardening (Kremer et al., 2013, Hardman et al., 2018, Rupprecht and Byrne, 2018, Fischer et al., 2019. These papers often refer to, but rarely focus explicitly on the ways IGS provide space for humannature interactions. ...
... IGS are defined as informal to describe the way bottom-up forcesboth human and non-humanplay a greater role in determining spatial outcomes in the absence of top-down control. They promote the stability of urban social-ecological systems by providing habitat resources (Kowarik and von der Lippe, 2018;Müller et al., 2018, Bonthoux et al., 2019, Villasenor et al., 2020, contributing to green space connectivity and accessibility (Kremer et al., 2013), contributing to critical ecosystem services (Robinson and Lundholm, 2012), and providing an opportunity to increase human-nature interactions, which are often limited within urban environments (Foster, 2014). For this reason, there has been growing attention to the social-ecological values provided by IGS and how these spaces may better be used to maximise these values (Luo and Patuano, 2023). ...
... Trees control wind and lower air temperatures through shade and evapotranspiration. Trees act as a natural evaporative cooler using up to one hundred gallons of water a day hence decreasing the ambient air temperature (Gago et al., 2013;Kremer, 2013). Trees shaded surfaces can be 20-45°F (11-25°C) cooler than the peak temperatures of unshaded materials. ...
The pressure for the increasing enrolment in higher learning institutions in Tanzania has accelerated the proliferation of the gray infrastructures in campuses. However, little is understood for the foregone economic value of ecosystem services from the lost trees due gray infrastructure development. The objective of this study was to assess trees investment for temperature cooling in higher learning institutions: a case study of Ardhi University Campus, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The remote sensing techniques, document review, and questionnaire were used for data collection. The study revealed that Ardhi University has trees canopies covering 227,638 square meters. Analysis of the temperature data demonstrated that temperature difference is influenced by abundancy of trees between Ardhi university campus and nearby areas. The average temperature in nearby areas in the afternoon is higher by 2 ˚C to 4˚C compared to Ardhi university campus. 72.4 percentage of students spend four (4) to eight (8) hours in an outdoor tree shaded environment within 12 hours in day time implying that trees shaded environment is important for daily life at the campus. Utilization of the outdoor trees shaded environment has implication of energy savings of 336,823.52 KWh which is equivalent to TZS 120,245,811 (USD 44,535). The study recommends that high learning institutions should invest in green space development with lighting and seating provisions to maximize their use while reducing building users at the campus. Short of that, more buildings are needed to cater for the increasing enrollment. This might be a challenge to majority universities considering that financial resources are scarce.
... Vacant land is defined differently in each municipality, and there is no universal agreement on a definition (Kremer et al., 2013). Physical and biological characteristics, length of vacancy, and current land use can all contribute to varying understandings of what constitutes vacant land (Lee & Newman, 2017). ...
Intense changes in urban land in cities worldwide are among the factors that contribute to diminishing forest land and biodiversity loss. Vegetative cover of diverse species and structures is crucial in ecosystem functions such as carbon storage, carbon sequestration, and stormwater attenuation. Conversely, rapid forest loss causes irreversible environmental degradation, reducing the capacity of these benefits. As reported in several previous studies, the presence of an abundance of vegetation on vacant urban parcels can host many ecological functions. Opportunities to expand urban green spaces by identifying vacant land with increased vegetative cover as potential areas for urban greening should thus, ideally, be fully exploited. Kuala Lumpur is among the fast-growing cities in Southeast Asia, with shrinking natural vegetation cover as the city’s existing vacant land is increasingly decimated via transformation into built areas. The vacant land that still remains is left idle due to topographical limitations or held for strategic reasons. Hence, this study aimed to assess vegetation cover changes within Kuala Lumpur's vacant land during 2018–2021, using the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) technique. The results revealed that 65.4% of the plots show accretion in vegetative cover, indicating the potential of these parcels to be conserved for ecological functions. The findings of this study will assist relevant authorities in identifying areas with vegetative cover accretion for prioritisation of conservation efforts. It is also hoped that this study will prompt the development of tools to assess the ecological values of vacant land on the ground as the next step in urban green space conservation efforts.
... One of the most popular solutions is to maximize the food production potential of urban vacant land [5][6][7][8]. For example, in Detroit, two-thirds of vegetables consumed and 40% of non-tropical fruit consumed could be provided with less than half of the available land (roughly 1800 acres) converted into productive space [9]. ...
As a new project associated with urban agriculture and community forestry in China, developing community gardens has been a concern of urban planners and managers. However, the response of urban residents to this project is still unknown, creating an awareness gap between communities and policy makers. This gap limits the successful implementation of the project. A combined method of on-site and online questionnaire was performed in eight sample residential areas in Wuhan. Results showed that the majority of the 496 respondents had favorable views, although the specific willingness varied. Lack of awareness about community gardens was considered the biggest obstacle restricting residents’ willingness, accounting for 69.15%. Other factors included confused relationships with neighbors (66.13%), imperfect policies (55.44%), and high planting costs (41.94%). The local government was highly expected to plan more land for agriculture use by 76.61% of the respondents. In addition, the respondents desired the government to conduct training on cultivating technologies (58.67%), address possible conflicts (57.46%), supply seeds and fertilizer (54.23%), and provide guidance in processing food products (34.48%). These findings will help local governments and managers draft scientific proposals closely related to the public’s perspectives in implementing community gardens in urban areas and provide informative references for other cities.
... Since this century, with the accelerating pace of urbanization, the scale of cities has been expanding and economic and social development has been rapid, but at the same time, it has also caused a great negative impact on ecology [1][2]. Urbanization has swallowed up a large amount of green space, the original ecological land has been replaced by construction land, the background of the ecosystem has been seriously damaged, and the urban ecological environment is deteriorating, which in turn has caused a number of ecological issues [3][4]. The overuse and exploitation of natural resources have led to a decrease in the carrying capacity of ecosystems, rapid degradation of ecological service functions, and frequent outbreaks of natural disasters [5][6][7]. ...
Since cities are areas with more serious ecological damage, it is of practical significance to construct ecological city development strategies. This paper first focuses on two levels: general pattern and spatial elements, and focuses on the methods and strategies of eco-city design under the bird-friendly orientation of spatial elements. Second, the degree of correlation between the two systems is determined using the theory of perceptual machine model, and the degree of impact is prioritized in order to identify the key influencing variables of the mutual coupling and coordination between urbanization and the ecological environment. Last but not least, the complete evaluation functions of urbanization and ecological environment were produced by integrating the standardized values of all evaluation indexes. The weights of each indicator were determined using the entropy weight technique. The findings indicate that city H’s overall level of urbanization growth and ecological environment development both exhibit upward trends year over year. The range of coupling coordination degree is between 0.3025 to 0.8975, and the type of coupling coordination changes from moderate dysfunctional decline to high-quality, coordinated development. The eco-city design plan remedies suggested in this study change the industrial structure adjustment process, boost macro-government supervision, and raise public awareness of environmental protection.
... Vacant lots offer multiple refuges and feeding resources for a large variety of taxa according to the diversity of their environmental characteristics and urban surroundings and arouse growing interest in biodiversity conservation in cities (Bonthoux et al. 2014). Vacant lots represent significant areas (up to 20% of urban areas according to Kremer et al. 2013) in multiple locations in the city, downtown as well as in periurban areas, based on the particular historical and social conditions of a given city. ...
Introduction
Vacant lots are urban refuges for a large variety of taxa. These habitats present miscellaneous trajectories with diversified previous land covers. Our study aimed to characterize the urban contexts of vacant lot appearance and to assess the influences of land use legacies and current landscape contexts on vacant lot plant communities.
Material and methods
We characterized the plant communities of 179 vacant lots within two French cities. We described their urban environment through temporal and spatial urban descriptors to identify the factors of taxonomic diversity and community functional features.
Results
Urban vacant lots have a variety of prior land covers, and their plant communities are highly diverse. The relative contribution of the studied spatiotemporal scale indicates that both past and current urban descriptors influence this diversity. Plant community taxonomic diversity results from diverse land use legacies: it is lower in formerly agricultural spaces and in vacant lots that appeared in neighborhoods transformed over time for the creation of housing, suggesting the influence of land cover heterogeneity. Urban descriptors, especially the vacant lots’ age, urban context and trajectories, also influence plant communities’ functional diversity in various ways.
Conclusion
This study highlights the need to consider both spatial and temporal scales to understand urban determinants of plant communities and to provide recommendations for the integration of vacant lot dynamics into urban planning.
... Besides formally planned and designed green spaces, there is also plenty of green spaces, mostly from vacant lands or abandoned locations, that are less managed and are not registered in the urban planning system. Recent studies approached these alternative green spaces using the term informal green spaces (IGS) and showed that IGS can provide equal or even higher ES as formal urban green spaces (Robinson and Lundholm, 2012;Threlfall and Kendal, 2018;Vereecken et al., 2021); Scholars further asserted to consider IGS as the complementary green spaces that help to improve the general connectivity and accessibility of urban green spaces (Kremer et al., 2013;Kim et al., 2018), and in this way, enhancing the flexibility and resilience of urban green infrastructure. ...
Informal green spaces (IGS) such as overgrown vacant lots and urban brownfields constitute a considerable amount of green resources in the city. Given that the increasingly competitive land use of the urban area, enhancing the potential ecosystem services (ES) of IGS through design and management practices is of critical importance. This literature review paper provides an overview of ES delivered by urban IGS: What types of IGS have been discussed? Which ES have been identified in IGS, what interrelationships among different types of ES have been identified, and how can the potential of IGS be enhanced by urban design practices? 112 scientific papers were analyzed for their 1) IGS terms applied, 2) ES studied, 3) current or potential ES discussed, 4) ES trade-offs, and 5) ES assessment methods. Through the review, we found that although different types of ES have been identified in IGS, most studies did not consider ES synergies and trade-offs. The few studies assessing trade-offs of ES in IGS mostly focused on large-scale IGS such as urban brownfields rather than on small-scale IGS such as vacant lands/lots. The literature review highlights two knowledge gaps for future research: the first one is to explore the design and management knowledge that integrate multiple ES in small-scale IGS based on the assessment of potential ES trade-offs and synergies; the second one is to develop the spatial assessment of ES trade-offs and synergies, which is the key to envision design and management interventions that optimize the benefits of IGS. The literature review promotes the acknowledgement of the term IGS through highlighting their value in ES provisioning and further outlines future research directions on small-scale IGS such as vacant lands/lots and patches of spontaneous vegetation.
... Community gardens have also contributed to residents' food safety and health (Bijkerk et al., 2018). Most importantly, the participatory nature of community gardens provides opportunities for the local residents to communicate and build gardens together, which is conducive for improving neighborhood relations and en-hancing cohesion among the residents (Kremer et al., 2013;Filkobski et al., 2016). ...
In many highly dense urban environments, the urgent needs of residents for increasing green space, improving the quality of the community environment and reconstructing the relationships among residents have given birth to the new space type of community gardens. However, China still lacks this relevant experience. In contrast, New York City's community gardens had a relatively early start, and they now have rich experience in space construction, operation and maintenance. Given their level of experience, they can be used as references for the development of community gardens in China. This paper adopts a bibliometric research method, identifies 201 periodical literature sources published between 2000 and 2020 from the core library of the Web of Science as the object of study, and finally assesses the research hotspot for transferring from macro-research to space-type construction method, social impact, and so on, through CiteSpace software analysis. By virtue of the research process analysis and the results of field surveys and interviews, this paper probes the development status of space construction and social organization construction of the community gardens in New York City, and summarizes that area's effective experience of development. Based on the current development situation of China's community gardens, it is proposed that the development of community gardens should be directed by ensuring the land for development, giving full play to social benefits, and mobilizing social organizations, so as to effectively realize urban space construction and social governance.
... For example, Detroit, MI as one of the post-industrial cities experienced high urban vacancy with more than half of city parcels becoming vacant land (Foster & Newell, 2019). However, even though less considered, a large amount of vacant land in the urban landscape also has considerable ecological resources such as mature tree canopy cover and wildlife species, which in turn provides numerous ecosystem services such as runoff mitigation, carbon storage, provision of habitat and air pollution removal (Kremer, Hamstead, & McPhearson, 2013;McPhearson et al., 2013). For example, Burkholder (2012) summarized that vacant land in urban areas can provide ecosystem services through its contribution to urban atmosphere, urban pedosphere, urban hydrosphere, urban biosphere and biodiversity respectively. ...
Design and planning are integral for sustainable development goals, including but not limited to: environmental protection, economic opportunities, and social justice (Khan et al., 2013; Wheeler, 2004). The application of key educational tools for achieving sustainable development and integrating theory with practices has produced a new paradigm in education called Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This study focuses on the undergraduate course Foundations of Sustainable Systems, where students created postcards with images and text expressing their understanding and position on sustainability in a distilled and compact format. This study identifies what themes of sustainability students believe are essential and considers how the results have changed in different years.
The analysis uses a sequential explanatory mixed-method approach to identify themes and changes in student views. The research findings show that this open-ended teaching strategy can instill motivation and a positive attitude towards understanding sustainability in students. Understanding and identifying students’ thinking is critical in moving forward with a comprehensive vision to achieve a successful sustainability focus. In addition, identifying students’ learning will
allow design and planning programs to improve their curricula and help educators advance the awareness to fully and explicitly integrate sustainability into their education offerings.
... It is expected that SLR will increase coastal erosion (Leatherman et al., 2000) and when combined with changing temperature and precipitation, alter the composition and structure of coastal habitat and biota (Meixler et al., 2020). The resulting loss of species and habitat will generate a net loss of associated ecosystem services and an uneven distribution across space and demographics causing gaps in environmental justice (Kremer et al., 2013). ...
Globally, urban-coastal areas are expected to experience substantial landscape shifts as a result of climate change induced sea level rise. Such changes will impact valuable ecosystem services. We employed sea level rise projections and land cover change mapping to develop a model which quantified present-day carbon sequestration, aboveground carbon storage, and belowground carbon storage ecosystem services and predicted the impact of sea level rise and accretion through 2100 on future ecosystem services in the urban-coastal Jamaica Bay, New York (USA) watershed. Our model predicted that future carbon sequestration, aboveground carbon storage, and belowground carbon storage potential in our watershed will be significantly impacted in wetlands and natural coastal-fringe habitat and have losses up to 0.16%, 15%, and 51%, respectively. We paired our present-day ecosystem services model results with data on socio-economic need (access to open space and poverty level of each census tract in the watershed) and used multivariate clustering analysis to identify clusters in which planning and restoration may help to address issues of ecological conservation and environmental justice. Our work addresses the need for better understanding of urban-coastal ecosystem service flows and the potential impact of future landscape change on these services. Our results provide support to increase coastal resilience through informed design, planning, and management of these ecologically and socially significant landscapes.
... Together these forces resulted in a complex mosaic of social-ecological relations manifested in different uses of private green space, public parks, and access to green infrastructure, continuing to shape the perceived value and necessity of NbS today. Numerous 'vacant' lots throughout the city, stemming from cycles of disinvestment, have also contributed to the persistence and health of urban ecosystems (Kremer et al., 2013). It is no wonder then that even though NYC is now arguably one of the most culturally and racially diverse cities in the world, enormous inequalities and issues of environmental justice persist, including disparities based on race and ethnicity in life expectancy, occupational hazards, exposure to ambient pollution (Sze, 2006). ...
Scholarship on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) primarily focuses on the potential for NbS to deliver multiple benefits to humans and biodiversity from networked natural systems. These approaches, if enacted without sensitivity to local contexts and histories, can deepen long standing injustices resulting from the destruction of complex self-organizing ecological systems, the usurpation of Indigenous governance and knowledge, and the prioritization of technical managerial approaches transforming nature into infrastructure. Here we review, synthesize, and critically reflect on existing scholarship on the rise of NbS in New York City, USA, to inform environmental policy in support of just transformations of complex urban systems. To do so, we examine NbS within the context of the social-ecological-technological system (SETS) of NYC. We organize our review and synthesis around three interrelated concepts of justice: Ecological, Indigenous Environmental, and Infrastructural Justice. Ecological Justice entails addressing the harms, needs, and desired futures of ecological actors while identifying synergies with human focused environmental justice concerns and movements. Indigenous Environmental Justice requires restoring Indigenous systems of governance and knowledge while making space for a diversity of social-ecological practices of marginalized communities. Infrastructural Justice addresses the historical and ongoing injustices perpetuated through mainstream infrastructure policy and design practice – including Environmental Justice concerns – which have increasingly turned towards NbS. Without embedding these principles within emergent NbS focused environmental policy agendas seeking just transformations, they will likely recreate utilitarian, anthropocentric, and colonial modes of managing nature as infrastructure. We conclude with a research-to-action agenda for meeting the interdependent needs of urban ecosystems and humans.
... According to Kim & Kim (2012), urban vacant lands, which he considers a waste product, arise out of urban growth, economic and industrial activities. Land vacancies are the end product of urban developments which include decentralization arising from demographic change, de-industrialisation, urban sprawl, and the taste for modern varieties of residential choices, as well as housing foreclosures, subsequent abandonment and demolition (Johnson et al., 2014;Kremer et al., 2013). This creates 'urban voids' or undesirable spaces within the urban structure. ...
... In this regard, being aware of the community perceptions to inform landscape regeneration projects and to consider the social, economic, environmental, and cultural functions are essential. However, through assessing the vacant lot uses, the physical indicators (size, shape, location) and socio-ecological characteristics, planners may be able to underpin the resilience approach and sustainable concepts in undefined landscapes [38]. While the discovery of ways became necessary to develop the urban environment in a more sustainable way, our view of intervention is near-sighted [8]. ...
Landscape areas have spatial discontinuities, such as vacant land and leftover spaces. Undefined lands present a compelling area for landscape research, aesthetical experience, and development of cities which discuss irregular and unexpected aspects in landscape settings. Having lacked a formal definition of undefined land, this study aims at proposing keywords of undefined lands, a comprehensive review of knowledge, and definition. In order to promote new aspects of such spaces in the future research, the study conducts a systematic analysis of 65 peer-reviewed papers for their temporal trends, locations, methods, key authors, and commonly studied aspects. Results show the production of vacancy and the temporary use of undefined lands as an opportunity, and a flexible method of regeneration. An increase in publications over the past 30 years demonstrates that leftover space is an evolving subject. Although socio-ecological aspects are the most effective, serious gaps are mentioned in the literature considering aesthetical and ecological qualities in leftover spaces formed by visual, sensorial (hearing, touch, smell, taste), and cognitive perception. These gaps in the literature suggest that it is important to understand the potential effects of repurposing citizen's ideas about interventions in which to use leftover spaces. Having identified the knowledge gaps, undefined lands are suggested as a significant sub-discipline in landscape research.
... The concept was first developed in European cities after World War II to overcome the serious shortage of capital, labour, and materials for post-war reconstruction (Faraci, 1967;TTPL, 2020). In recent decades, due to the densification caused by development and continuous urban migration, mini-parks have become a flexible and adaptable tool for bridging the gap between supply and demand for recreational sites in densely populated areas (Kremer et al., 2013;Nordh et al., 2009;Rupprecht & Byrne, 2014). ...
The smaller size of mini-parks in relation to conventional parks makes them a flexible and adaptable greening option for high-density neighbourhoods, despite limiting their individual service capacity. Consequently, some densely populated cities have developed clusters of mini-parks to meet intense recreational demands. We endeavoured to study the factors that support visits to mini-park groups, rather than to individual parks, taking 106 mini-park groups within Nanjing as samples. We utilised Tencent user density (TUD) data to trace the visit intensity of these groups and integrated multi-source data to measure their internal and external features. By establishing a regression model series, we investigated how the mini-park groups' internal amenities, proximity to surrounding recreation-related facilities, neighbourhood features, and layout affected their visit intensity over time (day/night, week/weekend). The results showed that larger open sites, proximate restaurants, higher density of commerce, offices and residents, and higher housing prices promoted visits, whereas greater neighbourhood green coverage discouraged visits. We also found that the service provision of most mini-park groups in Nanjing was inefficient or unbalanced, and that most mini-parks within a group worked competitively rather than complementarily. These findings can inform future decision making and mini-park planning in Nanjing and similar cities.
... (21) Vacant areas that are not developed or await development can serve small, or long-term or temporary uses such as community parks, wildlife parks, communal farms, and recreational areas (Kremer, Hamstead, McPhearson (2013). p,2.) (33). ...
Vacant areas are a vital resource for the provision of housing projects, services, and infrastructure in Egyptian cities, and can be used, according to their sizes, ownership, and shapes, to support sustainable development processes, and according to the databases of the cities under study from researchers, which represent 20 Egyptian cities, vacant areas represent a proportion ranging between 9-35% of the land use budget. In addition, during the period (2015-2020), the state allowed citizens to return the occupied lands, which contributed to the existence of large areas, but there are many challenges facing the vacant areas management system in terms of the lack of an integrated information system in terms of registration, updating maps, information available to investors and inventory of vacant areas in the state. Also, the institutional framework of vacant areas suffers from fragmentation and is a complex framework. The legislative framework also suffers from the conflict of legislation, so there is a need to review and evaluate the situation currently, and what are the successfully integrated management ideas in reforming the vacant areas system to maximize its role in sustainable development in Egyptian cities.
... (21) Vacant areas that are not developed or await development can serve small, or long-term or temporary uses such as community parks, wildlife parks, communal farms, and recreational areas (Kremer, Hamstead, McPhearson (2013). p,2.) (33). ...
Vacant areas are a vital resource for the provision of housing projects, services, and infrastructure in Egyptian cities, and can be used, according to their sizes, ownership, and shapes, to support sustainable development processes, and according to the databases of the cities under study from researchers, which represent 20 Egyptian cities, vacant areas represent a proportion ranging between 9-35% of the land use budget. In addition, during the period (2015-2020), the state allowed citizens to return the occupied lands, which contributed to the existence of large areas, but there are many challenges facing the vacant areas management system in terms of the lack of an integrated information system in terms of registration, updating maps, information available to investors and inventory of vacant areas in the state. Also, the institutional framework of vacant areas suffers from fragmentation and is a complex framework. The legislative framework also suffers from the conflict of legislation, so there is a need to review and evaluate the situation currently, and what are the successfully integrated management ideas in reforming the vacant areas system to maximize its role in sustainable development in Egyptian cities.
This chapter aims to analyze the implications between the declining and shrinking cities, urban vacant lands, urban land uses, green infrastructures, urban green areas, and their impact on climate hazards change. The analysis departs from the basic assumption that urban vacant land sites and spaces have a negative connotation but supported by the appropriate policies and programs of incentives can turn around and develop the essential green infrastructure to enable the mitigation of climate change hazards, economic growth, and socio ecological development. The method used is the analytical-descriptive base on the theoretical and empirical literature review. It is concluded that the land uses of vacant land sites more vacationed towards urban green innovation infrastructure and forest areas contribute to mitigate the climate change hazards.
This chapter aims to analyze the implications between the declining and shrinking cities, urban vacant lands, urban land uses, green infrastructures, urban green areas, and their impact on climate hazards change. The analysis departs from the basic assumption that urban vacant land sites and spaces have a negative connotation, but supported by the appropriate policies and programs of incentives, can turn around and develop the essential green infrastructure to enable the mitigation of climate change hazards, economic growth, and socio ecological development. The method used is the analytical-descriptive base on the theoretical and empirical literature review. It is concluded that the land uses of vacant land sites more vacationed towards urban green innovation infrastructure and forest areas contribute to mitigate the climate change hazards.
Questions
Numerous studies on community assembly processes have been conducted in natural ecosystems. However, we know little about community assembly processes in human‐dominated urban ecosystems. Here, we asked: (1) how are the composition and functional diversity of native and exotic plant species shaped by local environment and landscape factors across urban vacant lots; and (2) how is microbial (bacterial and fungal) community composition influenced by the local environment, landscape factors, and plant species composition across urban vacant lots?
Location
We investigated 69 urban vacant lots in Yokohama, Japan.
Methods
By using a variation partitioning approach, we examined the relative importance of local environmental and landscape factors (including land use and spatial structure) in explaining variation in plant species composition and functional diversity of native or exotic species. We also explored the relative importance of local environmental and landscape factors, and plant species composition in explaining variation in microbial community composition.
Results
The spatial structure of vacant lots determined the species composition and functional diversity of plant communities, suggesting that plant community assembly is determined by dispersal limitation. However, the functional diversity of the exotic species varied randomly, which reduced the relative importance of the spatial structure of vacant lots. Plant species composition as well as the spatial structure of vacant lots were the important drivers of the composition of soil microbial communities, despite a higher proportion of unexplained variation in their composition. Finally, we found an essential contribution of earthmoving methods in explaining the variations in both plant and microbial community composition.
Conclusion
Plant and microbial community composition would be largely determined by dispersal limitation across urban vacant lots. Understanding urban community assembly is critical for predicting plant and microbial communities that play an essential role in regulating urban ecosystem functioning and services.
This perspective emerged from ongoing dialogue among ecologists initiated by a virtual workshop in 2021. A transdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners conclude that urban ecology as a science can better contribute to positive futures by focusing on relationships, rather than prioritizing urban structures. Insights from other relational disciplines, such as political ecology, governance, urban design, and conservation also contribute. Relationality is especially powerful given the need to rapidly adapt to the changing social and biophysical drivers of global urban systems. These unprecedented dynamics are better understood through a relational lens than traditional structural questions. We use three kinds of coproduction—of the social-ecological world, of science, and of actionable knowledge—to identify key processes of coproduction within urban places. Connectivity is crucial to relational urban ecology. Eight themes emerge from the joint explorations of the paper and point toward social action for improving life and environment in urban futures.
The large-scale identification of urban vacant land (UVL) and informal green spaces (IGSs) using conventional identification methods is challenged by the high cost of time and resources as well as inconsistent outcomes. Moreover, the spatial–temporal changes of UVL and IGSs have received limited academic attention. We introduce a methodological framework for the large-scale automatic identification of UVL and IGSs in Hangzhou, China, based on semantic segmentation. We construct and release a large-scale dataset for UVL identification, containing five different UVL categories, and one of them is IGS, with 3096 patches for training and 128 patches for evaluation. We then train five different semantic segmentation networks using the dataset and utilise Segformer to predict UVL and IGSs within the whole urban area of Hangzhou. The presented segmentation model has a hierarchically structured Transformer encoder and a multilayer perceptron decoder, which incorporates local and global information to obtain effective feature representations. Extensive experiments have been conducted to evaluate the segmentation performance of the applied Segformer. Experimental results show the good identification performance of Segformer for UVL and IGSs. Results also verify that the proposed identification framework can be effectively used to analyse the spatial–temporal changes of UVL and IGSs in Hangzhou.
Rust belt cities are largely threatened by a waste of urban space at their core; however, in developing countries where land resources are widely used as instruments for macroeconomic stabilization, urban periphery is also at risk of being underutilized due to land hoarding. Such geographic differences entail new knowledge about how, where, and why underutilized lands are regenerated in the city. Furthermore, rapid urban growth imposes development disparity and mixed underutilization issues on cities in developing countries; therefore, how the geo-information obtained by the regeneration of different underutilized lands differs will be valuable for urban planners and policymakers to make prudent trade-offs. To fill these gaps, we conducted a sequential investigation into the regeneration of underutilized lands in a representative rust belt city–Changchun City in Northeast China, in an attempt to measure the regeneration pattern and analyze the underlying determinants using the Classification and Regression Trees analysis. The results indicated that, of all underutilized lands, increments of vacant lot and remnant cultivated land continued to plague the expanding urban periphery during 2016–2019. In a way, reduced underutilized lands alleviated land use conflicts at the city core. Nearly 23% of the underutilized areas had been regenerated, dominated by realty development, with most converted to residential lands, ecological lands and industrial lands. On the contrary, conversion to transportation lands and parking lots seemed to avoid the rapidly expanding sites. The regeneration rates in a certain area can be increased by a multitude of factors, including denser, simply structured land underutilization, abundant ecosystem services nearby and accessibility to public infrastructures. Site conditions such as residential density and accessibility may have fueled the regeneration associated with residential purposes, while regeneration of industrial development was closely associated with the underutilization density and parcel regularity. This research provides an empirical paradigm for delivering regeneration geo-information across different underutilized lands, particularly for rust belt cities that are caught between a shrinking core and speculative periphery.
This chapter aims to analyze the implications between the declining and shrinking cities, urban vacant lands, urban land uses, green infrastructures, and urban green areas, and their impact on climate hazards change. The analysis departs from the basic assumption that urban vacant land sites and spaces have a negative connotation but if supported by the appropriate policies and programs of incentives, they can turn around and develop the essential green infrastructure to enable the mitigation of climate change hazards and bring about economic growth and socio-ecological development. The method used is analytical-descriptive based on the theoretical and empirical literature review. It is concluded that the land uses of vacant land sites more oriented toward urban green innovation infrastructure and forest areas contribute to mitigate the climate change hazards.KeywordsClimate changeHazardsDeclining citiesForest areasGreen infrastructureLand useShrinking citiesUrban vacant land
Vacant and abandoned land can be public eyesores that can potentially result in neighborhood distress in the long term. In some cases, the contextual conditions of a neighborhood have been shown to have more of a negative effect on communities than the vacant property itself. Maximum opportunities to actually reuse vacant and abandoned land is known to primarily exist in cases where the surrounding area has locational benefits or when local economic conditions are hopeful. This study examines and compares neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics around vacant lots in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, to identify spatial heterogeneity within vacancy types and neighborhood characteristics. Specifically, we examine 1) if the socioeconomic characteristics of a neighborhood can predict existing vacant lots and 2) what neighborhood characteristics are associated with certain vacant lot types. Three logistic regressions were tested with different buffers around each vacant lot, and a total of eighteen regressions were performed to capture the effects on six vacancy types. Results suggest that there are various types of vacancies interacting differently at the neighborhood scale, and that a large-scale neighborhood context matters when predicting vacancy types. The results also indicate three salient points. First, minority populations are a strong predictor of residential and commercial vacancies. Second, high-income areas tend to predict vacancies with potential investment opportunities or vacancies as a part of an existing park or recreational system. Third, vacant properties designated for institutional land uses tend to be found in lower-income areas, yet, not necessarily in areas with high minority populations. Managing and repurposing vacant and abandoned land should be handled more progressively with a better understanding of the socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods. Further, examining vacancy types by community can be a way to diagnose potential neighborhood risks associated with vacant and abandoned land.
Funding and financing challenges remain a persistent barrier to implementing nature‐based solutions that enhance ecosystem services, facilitate adaptation to climate change, and combat environmental stressors in cities. In the absence of adequate public financial resources, private funds are often expected to fill the gap. But market‐driven, nature‐based solutions can contribute to an inequitable distribution of urban ecosystem services by focusing on net benefits provided by nature. To help foster sustainable development and ensure that nature‐based solutions reach diverse and historically marginalized populations and communities, this scoping review explores the ecosystem services provided by nature‐based solutions and the payment mechanisms that produce and maintain them, focusing on literature on the United States. Findings suggest that the net benefits provided by nature‐based solutions and the available payment mechanisms vary based on the solution utilized (e.g., urban trees, parks, community gardens). Further, the distribution of benefits from nature‐based solutions is influenced by local historical, cultural, political, economic, and environmental contexts, the voices included in decision‐making, and the payment mechanisms used. Inspired by social equity principles, we present a framework for ecosystem service provision that is sensitive to market‐driven funding, financing, and partnerships. Practitioners can use this framework to assess whether payment schemes work in tandem with place (the local context) and process (governance and planning approaches) to ameliorate or exacerbate disparities in nature‐based solutions and the benefits they provide to people.
Vacant urban land is a significant barrier to sustainable neighborhood development, especially in Midwestern U.S. cities. Many scholars have noted that temporary use can alleviate vacant land’s negative impact, thus enhancing local neighborhood sustainability. However, knowledge about the effectiveness of temporary use is scarce, with few studies having empirically compared the outcomes of temporary use versus a reduction in the vacant land ratio. This study employs a statistical approach to explore how vacant land and its temporary use are associated with critical neighborhood sustainability measures across environmental, social, and economic dimensions in two large Midwestern cities: Chicago, Illinois, and Columbus, Ohio. The two primary findings are: First, vacant land ratio reduction and temporary use, while associated with improvement of some neighborhood sustainability measures, may raise concerns with others. This suggests a comprehensive consideration balancing the effects across all three dimensions of neighborhood sustainability in vacant land repurposing practice and further studies. Moreover, this study highlights that high-quality temporary use, especially related to greening activities, if managed appropriately, could significantly contribute to sustainable neighborhood development. The findings expand the understanding of vacant land and temporary use, encouraging further studies and helping build more robust theories guiding vacant land repurposing practice.
While the role of urban green space in mitigating environmental hazards and enhancing urban resilience is widely recognised, the current or potential contribution of brownfield land to urban green infrastructure and ecosystem services has been largely overlooked by planning legislation. The perception of brownfield as low value spaces has instead driven a focus on brownfield-first redevelopment, and thus, this dynamic resource is quickly being lost. This research, based on GIS and remote sensing data, develops a novel hierarchical brownfield classification methodology to understand the nature and distribution of brownfield, using k-means clustering of several physical attributes, which can be used for a range of objectives and is widely applicable to post-industrial cities. Application of the methodology to the case study, Greater Manchester, UK, produced a typology of twenty-six brownfield types with distinct characteristics and differing spatial patterns across the city. Land cover analysis reveals that over half (51%) of brownfield land is vegetated (comprising 27% trees and shrubs, 24% grass and herbaceous vegetation), highlighting the significant ‘hidden’ green space present on brownfield. Brownfield sites traditionally perceived as difficult to develop (e.g. those with uneven topography, irregular shapes, or a water body), are particularly highly vegetated. Predominantly pervious types are widely distributed across the conurbation, including in built-up areas, which are a principal target for redevelopment, and thus highly vegetated brownfields are likely being lost undetected. Brownfield land is evidently a valuable dynamic resource in post-industrial cities and redevelopment should be planned at the city-scale to ensure careful strategic selection of sites for redevelopment, greening, or interim use based upon their characteristics and location.
This chapter aims to analyze the implications that urban sustainability, socio-ecosystems, and ecosystem services have as the bases to design the urban green growth strategies. The method used is the analytic based on the theoretical and conceptual literature reviews on the topics described. Urban sustainability and environmental performance integrates biodiversity and socio-ecosystems for the provision of better quality ecosystem services supported by green infrastructure design into the green projects aimed to achieve economic and environmental benefits. It is concluded that the ecosystem services and human well-being may suffer irreversible severe declines if sustainability is not built based on biodiversity of socio ecosystems, green infrastructure, and natural capital.
An analysis of trees in Chicago, IL, reveals that this city has about 3,585,000 trees with canopies that cover 17.2 percent of the area. The most common tree species are white ash, mulberry species, green ash, and tree-of-heaven. Chicago's urban forest currently stores about 716,000 tons of carbon valued at 521,000 per year) and about 888 tons of air pollution per year (360,000 per year. The structural, or compensatory, value is estimated at $2.3 billion. Information on the structure and functions of the urban forest can be used to inform urban forest management programs and to integrate urban forests within plans to improve environmental quality in the Chicago area.
Neglected vacant lots in the modern urban setting pose great hazards to community life. These lots, which host criminal behavior, accumulate trash, and create various health risks, epitomize the frustration and despair nearby residents often feel. A recent study reports that more than one-fifth of all land in American cities is classified as vacant. Despite the prevalence of vacant land and the reality of urban blight, many communities have been successful in transforming these dangerous urban spaces into thriving community gardens. Part I of this article discusses the stark reality of urban blight, emphasizing the success of community gardening as a means of addressing the problems associated with vacant lots. It also explores the diverse values involved in a community’s effort to transform unused land into productive gardens. Part II examines the current issues facing urban gardens and the institutions that have evolved to address them, such as land trusts and other nonprofit organizations. Part III of the article presents an in-depth analysis of current state, District of Columbia, and local ordinances governing community gardens. The article concludes by proposing core elements of a model community gardening ordinance that, when adapted to local needs, can encourage and protect community gardening efforts.
Five Borough Farm (Phase I) was a project of the Design Trust for Public Space, in partnership with Added Value, which operates the 3-acre Red Hook Community Farm in Brooklyn. Five Borough Farm (Phase I, which concluded in 2012) had three main goals:
• Document New York City’s existing urban agricultural activity through photographs, maps, infographics, and detailed interviews with key stakeholders, and describe the opportunities and challenges facing the city’s urban agriculture community.
• Establish a shared framework and tools to allow users to track urban agricultural activities citywide, and evaluate their social, health, economic, and ecological benefits.
• Develop policy recommendations that will help make urban agriculture a more permanent part of the city’s landscape and governance.
This publication has three main chapters – Urban Agriculture in NYC, Metrics, and Policy – and outlines steps to implement these recommendations.
Urban environments are in continual transition. Yet, as many cities continue to grow and develop in ways deemed typical or standard, these transitions can be difficult to acknowledge. Narratives of continued growth and permanence become accepted and expected while the understanding of urban dynamics becomes lost. In many parts of the world, the shrinking cities phenomenon has given rise to a new awareness of urban transition that provides a laboratory of new conditions at the intersection of urbanism and ecology. With property vacancy rates easily exceeding 50% in certain locations, cities in the American Rust Belt look more like successional woodlands than bustling metropolises, yet these cities still contain significant numbers of urban residents. A central question that arises from this phenomenon is: how can vacant land, through the provision of ecosystem services, become a resource as opposed to a liability? This paper looks to recent studies in urban ecology as a lens for understanding the land use potential of shrinking cities, while discussing unconventional solutions for sustainable development of urban land.
Spontaneous vegetation colonizes large areas in and around cities. These unmanaged areas are considered to have low economic value or indicate dereliction, but recent research suggests that these can contribute valuable ecosystem services. This study evaluates indicators of ecosystem services in three habitats: urban spontaneous vegetation (USV), managed lawns, and semi-natural urban forest, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. USV had higher indicator values for habitat provisioning (plant species diversity, invertebrate abundance and taxonomic diversity) than the other habitats. Indicators of climatic regulatory services (albedo and leaf area index) in USV were similar to those in lawn habitats. Organic carbon content of the soils, an indicator of carbon storage, was lowest in USV but only marginally lower than in lawns. Standing biomass, an indicator of production services, was lowest in USV but lawn production may have been overestimated. While USV sites are usually transitory components of the urban landscape, they deserve further consideration due to their provision of ecosystem services, in some cases to a greater extent than conventionally valued urban habitats.
I examine the conflict over the community gardens in New York City. I argue that this contest was an example of Lefebvre's "trial by space," and that ultimately, the struggles concerned the right to space, or "the right to the city." The city, operating from the perspective of entrepreneurial governance, claimed that the gardens represented a loss of exchange value and potential housing. I contend that more was at stake: the gardens and gardeners represented a threat to the hegemonic project of the government to maximize exchange values and to beautify and sanitize the city. I also argue that the issues of commensurability and narrative were critical to the conflict. The city used the rhetoric of a market economy paradigm to dismiss incommensurable use values, thus restricting rights to the city within a demonstration of power and "reason." In response, the garden advocates resorted to "tactics" and other persuasive arguments.
Cities experiencing social chaos may be viewed as socio-ecological systems that, as a result of a disturbance such as disaster or conflict coupled with lack of resilience, have shifted into a qualitatively different, undesirable state. We argue that urban community greening and other "civic ecology" approaches that integrate natural, human, social, financial, and physical capital in cities, and that encompass diversity, self-organization, and adaptive learning and management leading to positive feedback loops, have the potential to play a key role in developing urban community resilience before a disaster, and in demonstrating community resilience after disaster strikes. This paper adds to existing literature on resilience by applying resilience theory to urban socio-ecological systems, by expanding comparative analysis of resilience narratives in cities to encompass more community-based and environmental approaches, and by proposing an asset- and community-based tool, i.e., urban community greening, which can serve as the focus of social learning about resilience in cities. The paper also integrates knowledge of urban community greening and the resilience theory literature to propose a new "civic ecology", which we define as a set of tools to help people to organize, learn, and act in ways that increase their capacity to withstand, and where appropriate to grow from, change and uncertainty, through nurturing cultural and ecological diversity, through creating opportunities for civic participation or self-organization, and through fostering learning from different types of knowledge. Finally, we call for policy makers and researchers to work with community members to formally integrate civic ecology approaches into adaptive co-management strategies, thus enhancing our understanding of the importance of urban community greening relative to other resilience building tools in reducing risk in cities.
Urban agriculture is touted as a strategy for more locally reliant food systems, yet there is little under-standing of its potential food provisioning capacity. Using Detroit, Michigan as an example, we use secondary data to develop a methodology for estimating the acreage required to supply, as far as seasonally possible, the quantity of fresh fruits and vegetables consumed by city residents. We com-pare these requirements with a catalog of the publicly owned, vacant parcels in Detroit to assess the feasibility of producing significant quantities of the fresh produce consumed within city limits. We demonstrate that if high-yield, biointensive grow-ing methods are used, 31% and 17% of the sea-sonally available vegetables and fruits, respectively, currently consumed by 900,000 people could be a Corresponding author: supplied on less than 300 acres without incorpo-rating extraordinary postharvest management or season-extension technology. This indicates that urban agriculture could play an important role in food provisioning in many places.
To determine the role Latino community gardens play in community development, open space, and civic agriculture, we conducted interviews with 32 community gardeners from 20 gardens, and with staff from 11 community gardening support non-profit organizations and government agencies. We also conducted observations in the gardens, and reviewed documents written by the gardeners and staff from 13 support organizations and agencies. In addition to being sites for production of conventional and ethnic vegetables and herbs, the gardens host numerous social, educational, and cultural events, including neighborhood and church gatherings, holiday par- ties, children's activities, school tours, concerts, health fairs, and voter registration drives. In some cases, the gar- dens also serve to promote community activism. The primary concern of gardeners is to secure land tenure in the face of pressures to develop the garden sites for housing. The support organizations and agencies provide help with land tenure, as well as with advocacy, organization, and horticultural practices. Although the role of the Latino gardens in community development appears to be more important than their role in open space or agricul- tural production, the gardens can also be viewed as unique ''participatory landscapes'' that combine aspects of all three movements, as well as provide a connection between immigrants and their cultural heritage.
In the midst of the current economic crisis, there is renewed interest in transforming vacant lots into food-producing gardens. This study analyzed whether vacant lots are suitable for food production, by comparing the soil nematode food webs and nutrient pools of vacant lots and community gardens in two post-industrial U. S. cities, Akron and Cleveland, Ohio. Twelve vacant lots and 12 community gardens were examined in the two cities. All six Akron community gardens were established just prior to the initiation of this study, whereas the six in Cleveland were 15-30 years old. Soil pH, texture, moisture, organic matter, mineral nitrogen content, microbial biomass, and nematode communities were measured in both cities. Soil decomposition rate was also measured in Cleveland. Results show that the soils of vacant lots surpassed those of the newly-established Akron gardens and were equal to the soils of the well-established Cleveland gardens in the amount of ammonium-nitrogen, total nematode population, genus diversity, and maturity and structure indices. The soils of the vacant lots were lower than the community gardens in the amounts of soil moisture, organic matter, and nitrate-nitrogen, which we associate with the addition of water, compost, fertilizer, and tilling in the gardens. No significant difference was found between community gardens and vacant lots in microbial biomass, decomposition rate, or nematode enrichment index, which seems to indicate that vacant lots are equal to community gardens in nutrient availability and nutrient cycling. We conclude that barring any contamination, the soil in vacant lots maybe suitable for the establishment of food gardens, which can provide many desirable ecosystem services and enhance human well-being. We also find that the disturbance associated with tillage and conversion of a vacant lot into a community garden has short-term ramifications for both nematode food webs and mineral-nitrogen content.
The future of Earth's ecosystems is increasingly influenced by the pace and patterns of urbanization. One of the greatest challenges for natural and social scientists is to understand how urbanizing regions evolve through the complex interactions between humans and ecological processes. Questions and methods of inquiry specific to our traditional disciplinary domains yield partial views that reflect different epistemologies and understandings of the world. In order to achieve the level of synthesis required to see the urban ecosystem as a whole we must change the way we pose questions and search for answers. Cities are the result of human and ecological processes occurring simultaneously in time and in space and the legacy of the simultaneous processes of the past. Urban ecology is the study of the co-evolution of human-ecological systems. Scholars of both urban systems and ecology must challenge the assumptions and world views within their disciplines and work towards a hybrid theory that builds on multiple world views. The synthesis of research findings provided in this book is a first step towards articulating the challenge for scholars of urban ecosystems; it leads the way toward the integration we must achieve if we are to better understand and solve emerging issues in urban ecosystems. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved.
New York City community gardens have been the subject of political contestation over the course of their thirty-year existence. In 1999, 114 gardens were slated for public auction and redevelopment. This article examines the controversy over the garden auction as a politics of scale in which garden advocates successively raised the scope of the controversy beyond the scale of individual gardens, and ultimately beyond that of the city. Analysis of this land-use conflict highlights the significance of politics of scale for grassroots organizations within a market-centric, neoliberal economic framework.
The flowering plant species richness of twenty-six vacant urban lots which varied in age, size, isolation from other lots, and in intensity of 'weed control' (sporadic seasonal mowing), was investigated in the light of equilibrium island biogeographic theory. Species richness for all lots increased logarithmically with lot age. The species richness of lots 40 months and older, each of which had been mown at least once, did not increase with age, and was positively related to lot area and negatively related to measures of lot isolation. These results suggest that species richness had reached or was nearing equilibrium in these older-mown lots, possibly due to mowing and immigration-extinction phenomena, and that other lots are significant sources of colonists. That the slope of a plot of log-species richness against log-area for the older-mown lots is similar to that for oceanic islands suggests that these lots have immigration-extinction rates similar to those of true islands.
Analyses of urban ecosystems are steadily providing novel perspectives to the environment within and around urban areas. Prior analysis of plant species richness in urban vacant lots has suggested that they act as "islands in space and time amidst a sea of impervious surfaces" (Crowe, 1979, p. 1). Considering vacant lots to be island analogs places the vegetative species diversity of vacant lots within the framework of the equilibrium theory of island biogeography. The abundance of vascular plants within thirty-one vacant lots was sampled in a nine-block-square area in the neighborhood of Harlem Park in west Baltimore, MD, USA. Regression analysis indicated no significant relationship between species richness or species diversity with isolation. There was a significant negative relationship of species richness with area (R²= .2, p=.02) suggesting that the theory of island biogeography does not adequately explain the species variation within this area of vacant lots. Canonical correspondence analysis showed that clustering of species within the lots was partially driven by the variables of area, isolation, lot shape, species diversity and species richness. Within individual lots, the vegetational composition differed between the footprint of the demolished building and the relic backyard. Overall species richness and diversity may depend on a variety of factors that include but are not limited to the variables measured in this study. Other likely important factors not measured in this study include human management, seed dispersal rates and species imported for lot recovery.
While recent attention has cast a spotlight on urban brownfields (contaminated industrial sites), relatively little research or policy work has considered the vast untapped potential of the large number of small vacant and abandoned lots that lie in the midst of most economically depressed urban neighborhoods. Understanding the circumstances that create this situation—and inhibit its amelioration—will enable us to develop alternative policy mechanisms that promote redevelopment and neighborhood revitalization. This research focuses on the nature of the urban vacant land problem common to many U.S. cities and the barriers to redevelopment of such land. The paper characterizes the myriad causes and consequences of urban vacant land, and provides several examples of innovative approaches to redevelopment. Several findings have emerged from this work. First, urban vacant land redevelopment may be addressed through broad policy approaches such as regional governance and land-use planning, and/or through programs targeted to address specific place-based barriers. Neither approach alone will conclusively resolve the issue of urban vacant land. Since urban disinvestment and decline is inextricably linked to suburban growth, in order to effectively address the problem the governance structure must include both.
Urban areas are heterogeneous. Transitions in architecture and building density, vegetation, economic activity, and culture can occur at the scale of city blocks. Ecologists have been criticized for treating the city as homogeneous and urbanization as one-dimensional. To develop ecological understanding of integrated human-natural systems, the fine-scale heterogeneity of their built and natural components must be quantified. There have been calls for the integration of the biophysical and human components of systems, but here we provide a new tool to quantify this integrated heterogeneity by reconceptualizing urban land-use and land-cover classification approaches. This new tool, High Ecological Resolution Classification for Urban Landscapes and Environmental Systems (HERCULES), balances detail and efficiency and is flexible, allowing it to be used for interdisciplinary research, with ancillary datasets, and across urban systems.
City governments own or regulate vacant land and abandoned structures. In this article, the authors summarize new vacant-land survey data, examine the conditions and causes of vacant land, analyze city policy toward vacant land, and explore the possible interconnections among conditions, causes, and policies. They find that vacant land most often is associated with cities that have expanded their political boundaries, and the number of abandoned structures is related to a city’s change in population. Thus vacant land and abandoned structures are not interchangeable indicators of decay and destruction; rather, they have separate causes and need different policies.
Urban agriculture offers a framework for local self-reliance by provisioning food security, employment opportunities, and other community benefits. However, urban agriculture must rely on the supporting and regulating services of the soil food web. Hence, we quantified belowground biocontrol activity in urban gardens and vacant lots in two post-industrial cities using an in situ insect baiting technique. Due to the differences in habitat structure, we hypothesized that belowground biocontrol services will differ between gardens and vacant lots and the influence of habitat structure would differ with the type of biocontrol organism. Results revealed that biocontrol activity, as assessed by % mortality of baited insects, varied between 51% and 98% with higher activity often recorded in vacant lots than gardens. Major contributions to bait insect mortality were by ants, followed by microbial pathogens and entomopathogenic nematodes, respectively. Ants showed higher (p
Currently, over 50% of the world's population lives in urban areas. By 2050, this estimate is expected to be 70%. This urban growth, however, is not uniformly distributed around the world. The majority of it will occur in developing nations and create megacities whose populations exceed at least 10 million people. Not all urban areas, however, are growing. Some are actually losing populations because of changing economic conditions and population demographics. Whether a city is growing or losing population, governances face unique challenges with respect to infrastructural, water and transportation needs. To meet these challenges, agencies within city government are cooperating by pooling resources and removing conflicting policies, partnering with the private sector to offset costs of infrastructure, and taking new approaches to design infrastructure. By linking ecological theory with urban design, a more integrative approach to create liveable spaces, which are sustainable, can be achieved in rapidly expanding and shrinking urban areas.
Key Concepts
Megacities and shrinking cities are our future. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most of the world's population lived in rural areas. With economic shifts people moved into cities to find employment, better health services, and improved education opportunities.
Future cities represent major ecological, social and economic challenges and opportunities. Rapid urban growth creates economic incentives but can fragment, destroy or degrade existing natural ecosystems. Similarly, population losses create economic and ecological opportunities for expansion and growth.
Integrating ecological theory in urban design can create a framework for sustainable cities that are adaptive and resilient. Often, infrastructure is designed to meet engineering specifications but do not incorporate ecological functionality. By integrating ecological with the engineering, infrastructure can meet regulations at the same time enhancing the environment.
Vacant and abandoned property is increasingly recognized as a significant barrier to the revitalization of central cities. This study sheds some light on the nature of the property abandonment problem and on current city efforts to address it. It is based upon the findings of a survey of the 200 most populous central cities in the United States, conducted during the summer and fall of 1997, and on follow-up interviews with a portion of the survey population, conducted during the summer of 1998. The findings of the survey and interviews indicate that vacant and abandoned property is perceived as a significant problem by elected and appointed officials in the nation's largest central cities. This type of property affects many aspects of community life, including housing and neighborhood vitality, crime prevention efforts, and commercial district vitality. Single- and multi-family housing, retail properties and vacant land are the most problematic types of vacant and abandoned property for most cities. Cities use a variety of techniques to address this problem, including aggressive code enforcement, tax foreclosure, eminent domain, and cosmetic improvements. One-third of the cities surveyed use a variety of other innovative tools to combat the vacant and abandoned property problem. Nevertheless, current efforts to combat the problem suffer from a number of shortcomings that are described in the article.
New York City community gardens have been the subject of political contestation over the course of their thirty-year existence. In 1999, 114 gardens were slated for public auction and redevelopment. This article examines the controversy over the garden auction as a politics of scale in which garden advocates successively raised the scope of the controversy beyond the scale of individual gardens, and ultimately beyond that of the city. Analysis of this land-use conflict highlights the significance of politics of scale for grassroots organizations within a market-centric, neoliberal economic framework.
The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of social–ecological systems. This article presents the origin of the resilience perspective and provides an overview of its development to date. With roots in one branch of ecology and the discovery of multiple basins of attraction in ecosystems in the 1960–1970s, it inspired social and environmental scientists to challenge the dominant stable equilibrium view. The resilience approach emphasizes non-linear dynamics, thresholds, uncertainty and surprise, how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales. The history was dominated by empirical observations of ecosystem dynamics interpreted in mathematical models, developing into the adaptive management approach for responding to ecosystem change. Serious attempts to integrate the social dimension is currently taking place in resilience work reflected in the large numbers of sciences involved in explorative studies and new discoveries of linked social–ecological systems. Recent advances include understanding of social processes like, social learning and social memory, mental models and knowledge–system integration, visioning and scenario building, leadership, agents and actor groups, social networks, institutional and organizational inertia and change, adaptive capacity, transformability and systems of adaptive governance that allow for management of essential ecosystem services.
Research indicates that neighborhood environment characteristics such as physical disorder influence health and health behavior. In-person audit of neighborhood environments is costly and time-consuming. Google Street View may allow auditing of neighborhood environments more easily and at lower cost, but little is known about the feasibility of such data collection.
To assess the feasibility of using Google Street View to audit neighborhood environments.
This study compared neighborhood measurements coded in 2008 using Street View with neighborhood audit data collected in 2007. The sample included 37 block faces in high-walkability neighborhoods in New York City. Field audit and Street View data were collected for 143 items associated with seven neighborhood environment constructions: aesthetics, physical disorder, pedestrian safety, motorized traffic and parking, infrastructure for active travel, sidewalk amenities, and social and commercial activity. To measure concordance between field audit and Street View data, percentage agreement was used for categoric measures and Spearman rank-order correlations were used for continuous measures.
The analyses, conducted in 2009, found high levels of concordance (≥80% agreement or ≥0.60 Spearman rank-order correlation) for 54.3% of the items. Measures of pedestrian safety, motorized traffic and parking, and infrastructure for active travel had relatively high levels of concordance, whereas measures of physical disorder had low levels. Features that are small or that typically exhibit temporal variability had lower levels of concordance.
This exploratory study indicates that Google Street View can be used to audit neighborhood environments.
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