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Who has access to urban vegetation? A spatial analysis of distributional green equity in 10 US cities
Abstract
This research examines the distributional equity of urban vegetation in 10 US urbanized areas using very high resolution land cover data and census data. Urban vegetation is characterized three ways in the analysis (mixed vegetation, woody vegetation, and public parks), to reflect the variable ecosystem services provided by different types of urban vegetation. Data are analyzed at the block group and census tract levels using Spearman's correlations and spatial autoregressive models. There is a strong positive correlation between urban vegetation and higher education and income across most cities. Negative correlations between racialized minority status and urban vegetation are observed but are weaker and less common in multivariate analyses that include additional variables such as education, income, and population density. Park area is more equitably distributed than mixed and woody vegetation, although inequities exist across all cities and vegetation types. The study finds that education and income are most strongly associated with urban vegetation distribution but that various other factors contribute to patterns of urban vegetation distribution, with specific patterns of inequity varying by local context. These results highlight the importance of different urban vegetation measures and suggest potential solutions to the problem of urban green inequity. Cities can use our results to inform decision making focused on improving environmental justice in urban settings. Full text available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1XpvAcUG5AoX~
... Biophysical setting, socio-economic and demographic conditions, and developmental legacies at a variety of spatial scales, therefore, have the potential to affect the distribution of UTC within and among cities (Nowak et al., 1996;Heynen, 2003;Roman et al., 2018;Johnson et al., 2020). Given that patterns of UTC vary across regions and types of cities (Nowak and Greenfield, 2012), it is likely that the distribution of UTC within a city (and how equal it is) could also vary substantially across cities and regions (Schwarz et al., 2015;Nesbitt et al., 2019;Riley and Gardiner, 2020). The primary objective of this study was to better understand macro-scale patterns of UTC and patterns of unequal distribution of UTC within and among urban areas situated across biophysical and socio-cultural regions spanning the United States. ...
... The directionality of the relationship between UTC and UTC inequality was consistent across biophysical and socio-cultural regions and with city characteristics, but the strength of the relationship was highly variable. This finding supports a view that the broad factors governing city-scale inequality may vary with region and city characteristics (Schwarz et al., 2015;Hilbert et al., 2019;Nesbitt et al., 2019). For example, cities with declining population showed very little relationship between overall UTC and inequality, while those with increasing population had a strong negative relationship and also less inequality than expected based on overall UTC levels. ...
... For example, cities with declining population showed very little relationship between overall UTC and inequality, while those with increasing population had a strong negative relationship and also less inequality than expected based on overall UTC levels. This difference could reflect investment, stewardship, and governance impacts on UTC and equity (Perkins et al., 2004;Watkins et al., 2017;Schwarz et al., 2018;Nesbitt et al., 2019), as well as the impact of spontaneous vegetation regrowth in vacant spaces within declining cities in forested regions (Nowak, 2012;Pham et al., 2012;Riley et al., 2018). The strength of the relationship between inequality and total UTC also varied among regions, with very strong relationships evident in the Sun Belt and Atlantic Plain and Intermountain West regions, potentially reflecting the role of rapid recent development. ...
Urban forests provide a variety of ecosystem services that influence environmental and social welfare, but variable distribution of urban tree canopy (UTC) within and among urban areas can lead to inequitable provisioning of these benefits. Variation in UTC among and within urban areas is associated with local development patterns and socio-economic factors as well as broad-scale variation in the biophysical and socio-cultural context of urban regions. The objective of this study was to evaluate regional and continental trends in UTC distribution within and among urban areas, including assessing relationships of UTC and UTC inequality with socio-economic/demographic factors and characteristics of urban regions. Remotely-sensed UTC assessments and US Census data were used to derive census block group-level UTC-related response variables (e.g., percent UTC, inequality in UTC) and socio-economic/demographic predictor variables (e.g., median income, population density) for forty U.S. cities spanning several biophysical and socio-cultural regions. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze relationships of UTC with socio-economic/demographic predictor variables and the strength of these relationships was compared among cities across regions. There was a significant negative relationship (R² = 0.45) between total UTC and UTC inequality across the 40 cities, as the equality of UTC distribution within cities increased with decreasing total UTC. There was significant variation across biophysical and socio-cultural regions in UTC, UTC inequality, and the strength of the correlation of fine scale UTC with socio-economic/demographic factors. These findings illustrate the important role of broad-scale biophysical and socio-cultural factors as drivers of UTC patterns within and among cities.
... First, the main contribution is an examination of the accessibility of different scales of green spaces, which, as noted earlier, can both advance our understanding of environmental injustices and help green space organizations develop strategies to address them. Second, while studies examined the presence of vegetation and trees in both public and private settings [25], we analyze public green space. Focusing on street greenery as the XS green space measure allows us to describe small-scale green spaces that can be enjoyed by the public (as opposed, for example, to backyards). ...
... Third, by examining access to green spaces of different sizes in a relatively large sample of urbanized areas (n = 12), we shed light on whether the scale of green space matters in environmental justice outcomes. Finally, we recognize that travel to green spaces of different scales might occur through various travel modes, and include those travel modes in our analysis, whereas much previous literature focused on walking access to green spaces alone (e.g., [21,25]). ...
... The transportation modes that people use to access XS, S-L, and XL urban nature are likely to vary. Street greenery (XS nature) is a nearby green space that does not necessarily represent a destination in the same way as larger types of green space, and thus most studies have measured the total area or density of street-level vegetation in a neighborhood or other bounded geographies, likely accessed by walking [25,76]. To access neighborhood parks (S-L nature), urban residents most likely either walk or use a personal vehicle [45,47,[77][78][79]. ...
Different types of urban green spaces provide diverse benefits for human health and environmental sustainability, but most studies on access to green space focus on neighborhood parks, with less work on smaller or larger green spaces. In this study, we examined sociodemographic differences in access to green spaces of different sizes for 14,385 census block groups in 12 U.S. cities using a 'just sustainabilities' framework. We classified green spaces into street-level greenery (XS), neighborhood parks (S-L; walking and cycling access), and large parks (XL; walking, cycling, and driving access). We ran spatial filtering models at the census block group level using different thresholds based on transportation modes. We uncovered a complex picture of inequality, with consistent injustices for XS green space, and fewer injustices for S-L and XL green space based on socioeconomic status and age, and some instances of just distributions for S-L and XL green space based on race/ethnicity. Our findings present a concerning picture for 'just sustainabilities': the green space type that is most often part of sustainability and climate adaptation strategies-street greenery-is unjustly distributed, likely as a result of structural racism in U.S. institutions. By examining multimodal access to green spaces of different sizes, this study helps urban greening professionals develop more just and sustainable strategies.
... Based on street tree census data, there were 666,134 street trees in NYC in , 592,130 in 2005, and 498,470 in 1995, with a 12.5% increase from 2005and an 18.8% increase from 1995to 2005(Street Tree Census Report, 2016. We conducted statistical analyses at the census tract (CT) level, which has been frequently employed as an analysis unit in previous urban forest studies (Nesbitt et al., 2019;Tooke et al., 2010). We aggregated and summarized street tree structure and socioeconomic variables at the CT level. ...
... Bivariate and multivariate regressions are frequently employed in urban forestry inequality studies (Landry and Chakraborty, 2009;Nesbitt et al., 2019;Schwarz et al., 2015). Bivariate regressions can easily identify the associations between socioeconomic-tree variable pairs, but the identified associations may vary with the addition of confounding variables. ...
... This is probably attributed to high rates of tree planting in NYC, which results in an increase in small-sized trees. Although education-based inequality has also been identified in previous studies (Nesbitt et al., 2019), it has received less attention than income-and race-based inequalities. Typically, education-based inequalities are not explicitly considered or examined indirectly, and educational attainment is treated as one reason to explain the unequal tree distributions for the poor and racial minorities (Pham et al., 2012). ...
Most street tree inequality studies focus on examining tree abundance at single time point, while overlooking inequality dynamics measured based on a complete set of tree measures. Whether the severities of street tree inequalities vary with different tree structure measures, whether street tree inequalities are diminishing or growing over time, and how the inequality dynamics are affected by tree-planting programs remain largely unexplored. To fill these gaps, this study applied binned regression and cluster analyses to street tree census data of 1995–2015 in New York City. We investigated different structural measures of street tree inequalities pertaining to various aggregations of people, compared street tree inequalities over time, and revealed the inequity remediation role of the MillionTreesNYC initiative. We found that the underprivileged populations, characterized by higher percentages of the poor, racial minorities, young people, and less-educated people, are more likely to have lower tree abundance, less desired tree structure, poorer tree health condition, and more sidewalk damages. When disaggregating inequalities across various aggregations of people, income-based and education-based inequalities were the most severe, but the inequalities diminished over time. The race-based and age-based inequalities show mixed results that disfavor Hispanics, Blacks, and young people. The equity outcome of the MillionTreesNYC initiative is not ideal as the inequalities decrease when measured using tree count and species diversity, whereas they increase when measured using tree health and average diameter at breast height. The findings have important implications for more effective decision-making to balance resources between planting trees and protecting existing trees, and between increasing tree abundance and improving tree structure.
... To mind these gaps, subsequent scholars have begun comparative studies across multiple cities in a region or a nation in order to better discern regional disparities. Cases can be found in greatly developed regions, such as the U.S. (Nesbitt et al., 2019;Rigolon et al., 2018), Germany (Wüstemann, Kalisch and Kolbe, 2017a;, Canada (Tooke et al., 2010), and Europe (Kabisch et al., 2016) more generally. However, to our knowledge, there are few comparative studies examining the inequality issue of urban green space at a national scale in China. ...
... The study adopts two definitions of green spaces based on the major ecosystem services green spaces provide in urban circumstances (Nesbitt et al., 2019): to measure environmental regulating services such as air purification, micro climate regulation, water runoff mitigation, etc. The first definition is urban green spaces (UGS) that include all types of vegetations in a given urban area, such as parks, forests, street trees, farmlands, and gardens in gated communities; the other definition includes only park green spaces (PGS) which provide the public recreational and leisure services. ...
... The data resolution is 30 m, taken during the growing season of vegetation (Hansen et al., 2013), and the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) is applied to define pixels of vegetation by using a value of 0.1 as the threshold, following the method in a previous study that uses the same data set (Chen et al., 2017a). A pixel-by-pixel comparison of reclassified vegetation with satellite images from Google Earth in 2010 has been conducted manually by the authors, following the virtual ground truthing approach done in a previous study (Nesbitt et al., 2019). A total of 1,200 randomly selected points are checked, and the accuracy of reclassification is 92.4%. ...
Despite multiple benefits of green space for urban residents, the investigations on equality of access to green space are scarce. Most focused on individual cities and the results were inconsistent due to the varying definitions, scales, and evaluation methods employed within each. This study intends to address this gap by developing two indexes based on the Gini Coefficient to compare the inequality of access to urban green spaces across all 341 prefecture-level cities of China. An urban green space equality index (UGSE) measures the distribution of overall urban vegetation within a city. A park green space equality index (PGSE) focuses on the equality level of public access to parks.
The UGSE and PGSE at the national scale are 0.490 and 0.848. Strong disparities have been found in both UGSE and PGSE across the country using the local indicator of spatial autocorrelation (LISA). Regression analysis shows equality of green space is significantly related to GDP per capita, population density, and urban land area. Urban greening related policies are not significantly associated with equality, suggesting that a lack of concern might exist among Chinese cities for the spatial equality of urban green space implementation. These findings can help decision makers evaluate regional disparities in urban green space equality, thereby providing location-specific interventions for more inclusive and equal provisioning of urban green spaces.
... In 2016, Hispanic and Black individuals, on average, earned 70 and 59 cents, respectively, for every dollar earned by their White counterparts (Williams, Priest, & Anderson, 2016). The established socioeconomic patterns within the U.S. may help to explain why there are often lower levels of environmental amenities in areas with higher racial or ethnic minority populations (Nesbitt, Meitner, Girling, Sheppard, & Lu, 2019;Rigolon, 2016). ...
... Access to environmental amenities can be linked to a community's willingness (or ability) to pay for their upkeep and maintenance, yet many amenities are publicly owned and operated. Even though cities are making efforts to expand access to environmental amenities, recent research highlights persistent inequities in access across urban landscapes (Engelberg et al., 2016;Frey, 2017;Nesbitt et al., 2019). ...
... For example, some studies noted that racial and ethnic minorities live closer to urban amenities such as parks (Boone, Buckley, Grove, & Sister, 2009;Vaughan et al., 2013), but minority groups had lower access levels than ethnic majorities when access considered amenity quality and acres per person. Moreover, in a study of U.S. park area (all parks from the national to local level) and different urban vegetation cover types, Nesbitt et al. (2019) showed that park area was not significantly related to a specific social or economic variable (race, ethnicity, income). However, the results did suggest that significant differences exist in the spatial distribution of mixed and woody vegetation (i.e., trees to create shade). ...
Trees are critical assets in the urban environment. From reducing pollution and the effects of urban heat islands, decreasing energy consumption, and improving the overall quality of life for individuals and communities, trees are vital environmental amenities that promote and enhance public health, facilitating a more sustainable urban footprint. While many cities are making concerted efforts to plant more trees, empirical work suggests that the distribution of trees within these communities is unequal, fueled by a constellation of factors that include cost, maintenance, culture, and value systems. In order to identify and mitigate the inequities associated with the geographic distribution of trees within a community, it is important to deepen our understanding of the social, environmental, operational, and geographic nuances of tree distribution(s). In this study, we employ geocomputational and spatial statistical methods to analyze a database of 2.7 million trees in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. The results of this analysis highlight local variations in the relationship between tree density and social and environmental correlates, and offer a more geographically nuanced snapshot of the tree distribution for one of the hottest U.S. cities.
... However, the extent to which health, well-being and social equity structure fairer and more livable cities varies. Although we can identify examples of the successful integration of people, place and nature [5,6], there is extensive evidence from Europe, North America and South and East Asia of cities expanding with little reference to the development of interactive, high-quality or functional places [7]. ...
... Presenting the paper in this way provides a platform arguing that GI should continue to be considered as "essential infrastructure". It is also reflective of the scales/GI types discussed by Nesbitt et al. [6], Public Health England [8], Rousseau and Deschacht [9], Ugolini et al. [10] and Benedict and McMahon [11] within urban planning debates in the transition to a post-Covid-19 landscape, as well as by the Prime Minster of the UK and others during the pandemic. ...
... However, a growing evidence base running in parallel to this analysis explicitly reflects on the political decision-making process, questioning why low-income and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME)/Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) communities are subject to significantly lower provision, as well as poorer quality spaces and management. These reports are geographically diverse in terms of the cities/countries they discuss but support the analyses of Safransky [54], Anguelovski et al. [55] and Nesbitt et al. [6], who argued that there has been a systematic exclusion of high-quality GI provision in communities that are home to predominately BAME and/or low-income residences. Their work highlights a critique of investment in urban nature regarding the equitability of distribution. ...
Covid-19 changed the way many people viewed and interacted with the natural environment. In the UK, a series of national lockdowns limited the number of places that individuals could use to support their mental and physical health. Parks, gardens, canals and other ”green infrastructure” (GI) resources remained open and were repositioned as “essential infrastructure” supporting well-being. However, the quality, functionality and location of GI in urban areas illustrated a disparity in distribution that meant that in many cases communities with higher ethnic diversity, lower income and greater health inequality suffered from insufficient access. This paper provides commentary on these issues, reflecting on how planners, urban designers and environmental organizations are positioning GI in decision-making to address inequality. Through a discussion of access and quality in an era of austerity funding, this paper proposes potential pathways to equitable environmental planning that address historical and contemporary disenfranchisement with the natural environment in urban areas.
... The residential environment could play a role in the lower health and well-being commonly found in deprived neighborhoods. Differences between deprived and non-deprived neighborhoods may exist in terms of both physical neighborhood characteristics such as access to facilities or green space (Nesbitt et al., 2019;Zenk et al., 2005) and perceived neighborhood characteristics such as neighborhood attachment or perceived safety (Poortinga et al., 2008;Steptoe and Feldman, 2001). Since neighborhood characteristics are linked to wellbeing (Mouratidis, 2018b;Northridge et al., 2003), potential lower environmental quality characterizing poorer neighborhoods could contribute to lower well-being in these areas (Diez Roux and Mair, 2010). ...
... Physical neighborhood characteristics have been found to be less favorable for deprived neighborhoods in certain cases. Some studies find that deprived neighborhoods in some cities have lower green space cover than neighborhoods of higher income and education levels (Li and Liu, 2016;Nesbitt et al., 2019;Schwarz et al., 2015;Zhou and Kim, 2013). Such inequalities in physical neighborhood characteristics can contribute to inequality in well-being outcomes since access to greenery may have considerable well-being benefits (Hartig et al., 2014;Ulmer et al., 2016). ...
... In contrast with other contexts (Estabrooks et al., 2003;Nesbitt et al., 2019;Zenk et al., 2005), neighborhood deprivation is not found to be linked to differences in physical neighborhood characteristics. In fact, access to local amenities such as grocery stores, cafés, and restaurants is higher in poorer neighborhoods, even after accounting for neighborhood location and density. ...
It has been argued that the residential environment could play a role in the lower health and well-being commonly found in deprived areas. Yet, more knowledge is needed on how residential environmental quality together with neighborhood satisfaction relate to neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation. This paper explores the links between neighborhood deprivation and neighborhood characteristics, neighborhood satisfaction, and well-being, using survey and geospatial data from Oslo. Findings on physical neighborhood characteristics show that deprived neighborhoods are not underprivileged in terms of green space, public transport, and local amenities. However, perceived neighborhood characteristics – evaluated by their residents – were found to be negatively associated with neighborhood deprivation. These results suggest that deprived neighborhoods have higher perceived noise and lower perceived safety, cleanliness, aesthetic quality, reputation, and place attachment. Neighborhood satisfaction and emotional response to neighborhood were found to be lower in deprived neighborhoods. Overall, evidence from this study suggests that even when green space, public transport, and local amenities are evenly distributed, residents of deprived neighborhoods may still experience lower levels of neighborhood satisfaction and lower emotional response to neighborhood due to differences in neighborhood qualities such as perceived safety, noise, and place attachment.
... For example, recent meta-analyses have found significant income-based and race-based inequalities when accounting for methodological choices, confounding factors, and the characteristics of study sites . In addition to income and race, urban tree inequalities are also identified across other socioeconomic dimensions, such as education (in ten cities in the United States (US)), home ownership (in Tampa, Florida), and age (in Hartford, Connecticut) (Landry & Chakraborty, 2009;Li et al., 2015;Nesbitt et al., 2019). The findings show that underprivileged populations (e.g., low-income residents, renters, and minorities) and vulnerable groups (e.g., young children and the elderly) are typically associated with lower tree cover and fewer tree resources. ...
... Education-based inequality is also a major concern, with inequalities detected between Percent High School and five out of the seven tree measures. Education is frequently employed as a standard variable to explain variations in TCC (Grove et al., 2006), and education-based inequality has been detected in multiple US cities (Nesbitt et al., 2019). Education-based inequality may be attributable to the social stratification and resident stewardship behaviors (MEA, 2005). ...
... However, further studies of education-based inequalities across cities that cover diverse social and ecological settings are needed, particularly as education-based inequality is not uniform. For example, Nesbitt et al. (2019) reported that racial factors do not play a strong role as education in explaining vegetation cover, while Grove et al. (2006) questioned the exclusive use of income and education to explain uneven vegetation distribution. ...
Street trees are often unequally distributed in urban areas, and their physical and structural attributes, such as extent of canopy cover, species composition, and size distribution, are also spatially heterogeneous. Some studies report that inequalities are more prevalent in streetscapes than in private landscapes. Considering the existing inequality issues and public nature of street trees, street tree inequality studies warrant greater attention. However, most existing studies in this field focus heavily on the unequal distribution of tree canopy cover, while disregarding other tree attributes. In this study, seven street tree measures covering tree abundance, species diversity, and size structure were derived from high-resolution satellite images, Google Street View, and street tree census. We then applied the geographically weighted regression to these seven tree measures in New York City, United States, compared street tree inequalities among different socioeconomic groups, and identified inequality hotspots. Our results show that street tree inequalities are greatest with respect to tree abundance and species diversity. Furthermore, race-based and education-based inequalities are most notable, and age-, income-, and household characteristic-based inequalities were also detected based on tree abundance or species diversity. Socially vulnerable areas that suffer the most severe inequalities are clustered in Brooklyn and Queens. Disaggregated street tree inequalities, with explicit recognition of the differentiated distribution of limited tree resources among different social groups and across geographical areas, are critical for effective decision-making to alleviate environmental inequities.
... The diverse benefits of urban forests suggest that they can contribute positively to the environmental and social quality of urban areas. Research in the field of urban green equity, however, has revealed that not all urban residents enjoy equitable access to urban forests or their benefits (Heynen et al., 2006;Nesbitt et al., 2018Nesbitt et al., , 2019. In the United States, for example, researchers have uncovered a correlation between average neighborhood income and tree canopy cover (Landry and Chakraborty, 2009;Schwarz et al., 2015). ...
... In the United States, for example, researchers have uncovered a correlation between average neighborhood income and tree canopy cover (Landry and Chakraborty, 2009;Schwarz et al., 2015). Moreover, it has been shown that vegetation of any sort is more prevalent in areas with higher socioeconomic status and that historically marginalized residents and residents with lower incomes and education often have less access to urban vegetation (Nesbitt et al., 2019). Paradoxically, even in areas where historically marginalized residents have equal or better spatial access to green spaces, many parks are unsafe or poorly maintained, which may discourage use and prevent residents from realizing the available benefits of green infrastructure (Smiley et al., 2016). ...
Urban forests are increasingly acknowledged as sources of multiple benefits and central to climate resilience and human well-being. Given these diverse and significant benefits, it is important to govern urban forests so as to ensure that all residents have equitable access and enjoyment. Understanding urban forest preferences, and including them in planning and management, is a key aspect of informed and contextually relevant urban forest governance. Although many studies have examined public urban forest preferences, we lack an understanding of the preferences of a key stakeholder: urban foresters. This study presents the results of semi-structured interviews with 22 urban forestry and allied green practitioners focused on preferred and least-preferred aspects of the urban forest. Participants expressed their preferred urban forest characteristics according to four themes: administration, spatial attributes, naturalness, and social benefits. Least-preferred characteristics were expressed under the themes of administration and degradation. Results suggest that practitioners employ a systems-level lens when discussing urban forest preferences. However, they also draw on personal experience when constructing their preferences, particularly in relation to naturalness and spatial diversity. These results provide insight into the urban forest preferences of practitioners and highlight the importance of innovative approaches, such as mosaic governance in urban forestry, to facilitate a just integration of the diverse preferences of urban forest stakeholders.
... Additionally, the location, size, and shape of the street block are closely linked to urban socio-economically functional zones and land use types (Yuan et al. 2015). Land cover changes within the same street block often share similar drivers and tended to be homogenous (Nesbitt et al. 2019). ...
... For example, demographic characteristics such as income may change when residential areas are rebuilt. Further changes can be associated with the quality of and access to neighboring urban parks (Nesbitt et al. 2019). The acquisition and application of street networks are widespread in urban planning and management studies because the social function and human activities can be explicitly displayed at the block level (Bechtel et al. 2015;Long et al. 2015;Boeing 2019). ...
ContextUrban landscapes are highly dynamic with changes frequently occurring at short time intervals. Although the Landsat data archive allows the use of high-density time-series data to quantify such dynamics, the approaches that can fully address the spatial and temporal complexity of the urban landscape are still lacking.ObjectivesA new approach is presented for accurately quantifying urban landscape dynamics. Information regarding when and where a change occurs, what type of change exists, and how often it happens are incorporated.Methods
The new approach integrates object-based image analysis and time-series change detection techniques by using all available Landsat images for several decades. This approach was tested on the rapidly urbanizing city of Shenzhen, China from 1986 to 2017.ResultsLand cover changes in both long- and short-time intervals can be proficiently detected with an overall accuracy of 90.65% and a user’s accuracy of 92.18% and 82.40% for “No change” and “Change”, respectively. The frequency and time of change can be explicitly displayed while incorporating the advantages of object-based image analysis and time-series change detection. The efficiency of the change analysis can be greatly increased because the object-based analysis greatly reduces the number of analyzed units.Conclusion
The new approach can accurately and efficiently detect the land cover change for quantifying urban landscape dynamics. Integrating the object and the remotely sensed time-series data has the potential to link the physical and socio-economic properties together for facilitating sustainable landscape planning.
... facilities or vegetation structure) (Ayala-Azcárraga et al., 2019;Luz et al., 2019;Massoni, Barton, Rusch, & Gundersen, 2018;Vierikko et al., 2020;Wang, Kotze, Vierikko, & Niemelä, 2019;Zhang & Tan, 2019). Equitable accessibility to green areas among all residents is one of the major components in building socially sustainable cities (Dale & Newman, 2009;Du & Zhang, 2020;Ferguson, Roberts, McEachan, & Dallimer, 2018;Kabisch & Haase, 2014;Kimpton, 2017;Nesbitt, Meitner, Girling, Sheppard, & Lu, 2019;Pearsall & Eller, 2020;Wolch, Byrne, & Newell, 2014). ...
... Spatial prioritization results (Figs. 4 and 6) can support urban planning to account better for fair access to green areas by all residents living in different districts and regardless of their socio-economic status (Nesbitt et al., 2019). Green areas of highest priority should be preserved, because they jointly support the accessibility of most people in the Helsinki Metropolitan area. ...
Maintaining enough green areas and ensuring fair access to them is a common planning challenge in growing and densifying cities. Evaluations of green area access typically use metrics like population around green areas (within a certain buffer), but these do not fully ensure equitable access. We propose that using systematic and complementarity-driven spatial prioritization, often used in nature conservation planning, could assist in the complex planning challenge. Here, we demonstrate the use of spatial prioritization to identify green areas with highest recreational potential based on their type and their accessibility for the residents of the Helsinki Metropolitan area, the capital district of Finland. We calculated travel times from each city district to each green area. Travel times were calculated separately to local green areas using active travel modes (walking and biking), and to large forests (attracting people from near and far) using public transport. We prioritized the green areas using these multimodal travel times from each district and weighting the prioritization with population data with Zonation, conservation prioritization software. Compared to a typical buffer analysis (population within a 500 m buffer from green areas), our approach identified areas of high recreational potential in different parts of the study area. This approach allows systematic integration of travel-time-based accessibility measures into equitable spatial prioritization of recreational green areas. It can help urban planners to identify sets of green areas that best support the recreational needs of the residents across the city.
... Researchers discuss and investigate these findings under the term of environmental justice [30]. With respect to environmental resources, studies indicate that people with a low socioeconomic position (SEP) or entire deprived neighbourhoods often have poorer access to urban green spaces than people with a higher SEP and, respectively, less deprived neighbourhoods [31][32][33][34]. In Germany, the question of equal access to healthpromoting urban green spaces has also become an important research topic on environmental justice in recent years [35]. ...
... Our findings are generally comparable to other study results on socioeconomic differences in green space accessibility in urban areas, both internationally [31,33,34] and in Germany [32,36,37]. However, a detailed comparison of our analysis results with the literature is limited because how inequalities in environmental health resources are examined empirically varies greatly [35]. ...
Public green spaces have a high potential for a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing, especially in urban areas. Studies on environmental justice indicate socially unequal access possibilities to urban green spaces. This article presents results on associations between individual socioeconomic position (SEP) and walking time from home to public green spaces in young people living in urban areas with more than 20,000 inhabitants in Germany. Data were derived from the German Environmental Survey for Children and Adolescents 2014–2017 (GerES V), the environmental module of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS Wave 2). The sample comprises 1149 participants aged 3 to 17 years. A total of 51.5% of the participants reach a public green space on foot within five and 72.8% within ten minutes from home. The lower the participant’s SEP, the longer the walking time. Logistic regression models controlling for age group, sex, migration background, and region of residence show that participants with a low SEP have a significantly higher risk (odds ratio = 1.98; 95% confidence interval: 1.31–2.99) of needing more than ten minutes to walk from home to a public green space than participants with a high SEP. GerES V data indicate that young people living in urban areas in Germany do not equally benefit from the health-promoting potential of green spaces, which is an important aspect of environmental health inequalities.
... It includes different fields of research that integrate social dimensions (age, race, gender, and income), exposure to environmental risks (e.g., air pollution, greenspace, climate change), and accessibility issues (Boone, 2008;Walker, 2012). In terms of access to green space, environmental equality refers to the equitable access of residents to green space, regardless of diverse residents' factors; environmental inequality indicates the disproportionate distribution of green space among residents (Nesbitt, Meitner, Girling, Sheppard, & Lu, 2019;Nicholls, 2001;Wüstemann, Kalisch, & Kolbe, 2017). ...
... However, such greening proposals are impracticable to be achieved, given that a greener environment is more livable but has higher criteria to acquire (Kong, Yin, & Nakagoshi, 2007), which may trigger environmental inequality. Therefore, a growing body of literature has focused on whether the inequitable green accessibility was associated with ethnicities (Hughey et al., 2016;McConnachie & Shackleton, 2010;Nesbitt et al., 2019;Zhou & Kim, 2013), ages (Gupta, Roy, Luthra, Maithani, & Mahavir, 2016;Kabisch & Haase, 2014;Loukaitou-Sideris, Levy-Storms, Chen, & Brozen, 2016;Reyes, Páez, & Morency, 2014), religions (Comber, Brunsdon, & Green, 2008), and incomes (Astell-Burt, Feng, Mavoa, M, & Giles-Corti, 2014;Pham, Apparicio, Séguin, Landry, & Gagnon, 2012;Sister, Wolch, & Wilson, 2010). Western scholars have ample knowledge of environmental inequality in access to green space, whereas related works in developing countries remain relatively scarce. ...
... Allocating green space without displacing the long-term, low-income residents of an area is an important consideration to policymakers as they seek to balance positive effects of green space access and the negative effects of 'eco-gentrification' (Nesbitt et al., 2019). GIS has allowed researchers to more carefully examine the relationship between property and neighborhood characteristics and residential property values. ...
... In urban spaces strapped for land, reuse of existing infrastructure such as the High Line offer a way to provide more green spaces without requiring the demolition of existing housing, yet their effects on the existing residents may be detrimental. The increase in residential property values resulting from greening projects implies that only the wealthiest are able to live in areas with accessible green space and thereby reap its benefits (Astell-Burt et al., 2014;Nesbitt et al., 2019). This project aims to estimate the benefits of the High Line in aggregate, but also inform policy makers regarding the spatial distribution of the benefits. ...
This study estimates the impact of the introduction of New York’s High Line, an elevated walkway in Manhattan by relating the increase in housing values to the issue of eco-gentrification in urban areas. Studies have shown that increasing the amount of green space can lead to gentrification: rising property values, displacement of existing residents, and a large in-migration of wealthy populations. We utilize Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to spatially model the effects of the High Line on residential property values. We exploit spatial and temporal differences of the High Line’s opening to estimate its impact on residential ho8me values. We find that homes closest to the High Line experienced a 35.3% increase in housing values. We estimate the driving force behind this premium by using a triple difference approach by analyzing elevation levels and find that homes with relatively the same height as the High Line receive the largest premium. This study serves to inform policy makers regarding potential inequality of green space provisions. We provide policy recommendations for minimizing the housing price impact of green space creation.
... Riley & Gardiner, 2020), several reviews (e.g. and empirical studies from different world regions have shown that lower income residential areas within towns and cities are more likely to have the least access to green infrastructure in the form of green spaces or street trees (Astell-Burt & Feng, 2019;McConnachie & Shackleton, 2010;Nero, 2017;Sathyakumar et al., 2019;Shen et al., 2017). In many settings, this also overlaps with areas dominated by racial minorities (Heynen et al., 2006;Landry & Chakraborty, 2009;Nesbitt et al., 2019;. For example, Astell-Burt & Feng (2019) reported that public green infrastructure availability in more affluent areas of Adelaide, Australia, was almost double that found in the poorer neighbourhoods, and in South Africa, Kuruneri-Chitepo & Shackleton (2011) reported that the poorest areas had none or few street trees, which was in stark contrast to affluent areas. ...
... These are often, albeit not always, correlated with average income for the neighbourhoods and race (e.g. Li & Liu, 2016;Nesbitt et al., 2019;Ogneva-Himmelberger et al., 2009). However, Ferguson et al. (2018) caution that such relationships may vary depending on what measures of green infrastructure are included. ...
Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside. Areas with White residents report 6-fold higher income, have 11.7% greater tree cover, 8.9% higher vegetation greenness and live 700m closer to a public park than areas with predominantly Black African, Indian, and Coloured residents. The inequity in neighborhood greenness levels has been maintained (for Indian and Coloured areas) and further entrenched (for Black African areas) since the end of Apartheid in 1994 across the country. We also find that these spatial inequities are mirrored in both private (gardens) and public (street verges, parks, green belts) spaces, hinting at the failure of governance structures to plan for and implement urban greening initiatives. By leveraging open-access satellite data and methods presented here, there is scope for civil society to monitor urban green infrastructure over time and thereby hold governments accountable to addressing environmental justice imperatives in the future. Interact with the data here: green-apartheid.zsv.co.za
... In the American case, there is a better and more abundant supply of green areas in the case of middle-class suburbs, compared to the inner city [242,243]. However, beyond this general statement, the extensive existing academic literature coincides in indicating elements of race, education, and income in order to explain different degrees of access to green areas [261][262][263]. In this sense, some approaches have mostly focused on racial elements [261], while others on educational and income differences [263]. ...
... However, beyond this general statement, the extensive existing academic literature coincides in indicating elements of race, education, and income in order to explain different degrees of access to green areas [261][262][263]. In this sense, some approaches have mostly focused on racial elements [261], while others on educational and income differences [263]. In this context, many cities have embarked on programs to increase the provision of urban green spaces in poorly endowed central areas with, in some cases, significant levels of socio-environmental degradation. ...
Urban sprawl and its economic, social, and environmental consequences are central issues for approaching more sustainable forms of life and production. This review provides a broad theoretical exploration of the main features of urban sprawl but also of sustainable urban policies in Western Europe and North America. Urban sprawl can be observed in both continents, as the search for higher standards of economic, social, and environmental sustainability is also an essential feature of urban governance in the last years. Urban sprawl has been slightly weaker in Western Europe, as its are cities generally more compact. Moreover, in Western Europe, urban sprawl has sometimes been confronted with ex-ante preventive policies. However, in North America, urban sprawl from the 1950s has been an essential element of the social ordering and, thus, of the American way of life. In both cases, urban sprawl has generated successive rounds of accumulation of built capital, which is currently managed in sustainable ways essentially through ex-post and palliative measures, that is, trying to “sustain what is unsustainable”. In other words, the idea is to make urban sprawl more sustainable but without altering its main morphological elements.
... Replacement of natural vegetation with impermeable surfaces is a key cause of the urban heat island effect. Although it is one of many factors that controls SUHI (Peng et al., 2012;Zhao et al., 2014), we focus on this land cover conversion due for three main reasons: it has significant intra-urban and inter-urban variation (Cui and De Foy, 2012;Chakraborty and Lee, 2019;; access to green space has been found to be inversely correlated with income (Hsu et al., 2018;Nesbitt et al., 2019;; and urban revegetation is a commonly proposed urban heat mitigation strategy (Maimaitiyiming et al., 2014;Ziter et al., 2019). The presence of green vegetation has other co-benefits beyond reducing local temperature (Dadvand et al., 2015;Fong et al., 2018;Iyer et al., 2020). ...
... While this income and race-based segregation within cities has weakened over time (Juday, 2015), the higher SUHI for the urban core partly explains the associations between SUHI intensity, income, and race. Physical factors may also control the disparity in SUHI, particularly urban vegetation, which is also associated with income and race Nesbitt et al., 2019). We see positive correlations between ΔNDVI and median income (Fig. 7a, b, and 8c), implying richer urban residents live in 'greener' census tracts. ...
The urban heat island (UHI) effect is strongly modulated by urban-scale changes to the aerodynamic, thermal, and radiative properties of the Earth’s land surfaces. Interest in this phenomenon, both from the climatologist and public health perspectives, has led to hundreds of UHI studies, mostly conducted on a city-by-city basis. These studies, however, do not provide a complete picture of the UHI for administrative units using a consistent methodology. To address this gap, we characterize clear-sky surface UHI (SUHI) intensities for all urbanized areas in the United States using a modified Simplified Urban-Extent (SUE) approach by combining a fusion of remotely-sensed data products with multiple US census-defined administrative urban delineations. We find the highest daytime SUHI intensities during summer (1.91 ± 0.97 °C) for 418 of the 497 urbanized areas, while the winter daytime SUHI intensity (0.87 ± 0.45 °C) is the lowest in 439 cases. Since urban vegetation has been frequently cited as an effective way to mitigate UHI, we use NDVI, a satellite-derived proxy for live green vegetation, and US census tract delineations to characterize how vegetation density modulates inter-urban, intra-urban, and inter-seasonal variability in SUHI intensity. In addition, we also explore how elevation and distance from the coast confound SUHI estimates. To further quantify the uncertainties in our estimates, we analyze and discuss some limitations of using these satellite-derived products across climate zones, particularly issues with using remotely sensed radiometric temperature and vegetation indices as proxies for urban heat and vegetation cover. We demonstrate an application of this spatially explicit dataset, showing that for the majority of the urbanized areas, SUHI intensity is lower in census tracts with higher median income and higher proportion of white people. Our analysis also suggests that poor and non-white urban residents may suffer the possible adverse effects of summer SUHI without reaping the potential benefits (e.g., warmer temperatures) during winter, though establishing this result would require future research using more comprehensive heat stress metrics. This study develops new methodological advancements to characterize SUHI and its intra-urban variability at levels of aggregation consistent with sources of other socioeconomic information, which can be relevant in future inter-disciplinary research and as a possible screening tool for policy-making. The dataset developed in this study can be visualized at: https://datadrivenlab.users.earthengine.app/view/usuhiapp.
... Replacement of natural vegetation with impermeable surfaces is a key cause of the urban heat island effect. Although it is one of many factors that controls SUHI (Peng et al., 2012;Zhao et al., 2014), we focus on this land cover conversion due for three main reasons: it has significant intra-urban and inter-urban variation (Cui and De Foy, 2012;Chakraborty and Lee, 2019;; access to green space has been found to be inversely correlated with income (Hsu et al., 2018;Nesbitt et al., 2019;; and urban revegetation is a commonly proposed urban heat mitigation strategy (Maimaitiyiming et al., 2014;Ziter et al., 2019). The presence of green vegetation has other co-benefits beyond reducing local temperature (Dadvand et al., 2015;Fong et al., 2018;Iyer et al., 2020). ...
... While this income and race-based segregation within cities has weakened over time (Juday, 2015), the higher SUHI for the urban core partly explains the associations between SUHI intensity, income, and race. Physical factors may also control the disparity in SUHI, particularly urban vegetation, which is also associated with income and race Nesbitt et al., 2019). We see positive correlations between ΔNDVI and median income (Fig. 7a, b, and 8c), implying richer urban residents live in 'greener' census tracts. ...
The urban heat island (UHI) effect is strongly modulated by urban-scale changes to the aerodynamic, thermal, and radiative properties of the Earth’s land surfaces, and, among other things, exacerbates heat stress. With the majority (~80%) of the US population currently living in urban areas, urban heat stress is a threat to public health - one that will be aggravated by continuing urbanization, rural to urban migration, and climate change. While there have been hundreds of studies on the UHI, mostly done on a city-by-city basis, we do not have a complete picture at the national US scale using a consistent methodology, particularly regarding intra-city UHI variability. This within-city variability, caused by the spatial heterogeneity of urban areas may lead to higher heat exposure for certain vulnerable groups and is important for policy making and urban planning purposes. To address this gap, we characterize surface UHI intensities over the US using a modified Simplified Urban-Extent (SUE) approach by combining multiple US census-defined administrative urban delineations with a fusion of satellite products. We find the highest daytime UHI intensities during summer (mean value = 1.91 ± 0.97 °C) for 418 of 497 urbanized areas in the US, while the wintertime daytime UHI intensity (mean value = 0.87 ± 0.45 °C) is the lowest in 439 cases. Since urban vegetation has been frequently cited as an effective way to mitigate UHI, we use NDVI, a satellite-derived proxy for live green vegetation, and US census tract delineations to demonstrate that vegetation density strongly modulates inter-city, intra-city, and inter-seasonal variation in the UHI intensity. We use the census tract-based aggregation to demonstrate an application of this dataset, showing that for the majority of the urbanized areas, the UHI intensity is lower in census tracts with higher median income and higher proportion of white people. Moreover, poor and non-white urban residents seem to be suffering the adverse effects of summertime UHI without reaping the potential benefits during winter. We expect that this spatially explicit dataset, which can be explored here: https://datadrivenlab.users.earthengine.app/view/usuhiapp, can be directly implemented for policy making and urban planning, enabling the design of better mitigation strategies to ameliorate both the total UHI and disparities in its distribution.
... Urban settings in different countries have significant inequalities in the distribution of physical infrastructure that affect residents' quality of life; for example, residents in historic quarters of Changting in China, Glasgow in the UK and Berlin in Germany suffer from lack of access to basic services such as transportation, health care, and green space [1,3,[13][14][15][16][17]. of 4.4 million people living in 16 of those (precincts 1-13 and 15-17). The 16 municipal precincts comprise 394.78 km 2 of urban land, which is concentrated in the city's central districts, whereas the remaining 6 peripheral precincts comprise agricultural land and villages. ...
... Regions bordering the western to northwestern part of the city center are planned urban area based on the 1964-78 Master Plans. They encompass parts of precincts 2, 3, 5, 10, and 15, and most of the precincts 4 and 11; small sections of precincts 7,8,16, and 17 also fall in this domain. In precincts 16 and 17 large-scale urban development occurred post-2001 based on the 1978 Master Plan. ...
Accessibility, the size of the land area, the design and build quality, and the number of parks and their correlation with population density are key elements in fostering ecological spatial equity within cities. This study analyzed different spatial equity attributes of existing parks in Kabul City using onsite observations, measurement analyses, and mapping and buffering of satellite imagery using computer-aided design methods. The results revealed that, presently, 309 ha of urban land is covered by parks, which accounts for 0.78% of the total land area of 394.78 km2. On average, a quarter of city residents can access a park with basic amenities within 300 to 600 m of their residence, and parks currently provide a land coverage distribution per resident of 0.69 m2. However, the majority of parks lack certain amenities like playground and sports facilities desired by different user groups. This article also explored the inequitable distribution of parks at the city scale, underlining the scarcity or concentration of parks in certain areas and stressing the importance of allocating additional land for park provision.
... A greater proportion of non-environmental participants (76%; n = 22/29) also scored the challenge 'Pollution will increase if RAS are unable to identify or clean up accidents (for example, spillages) that occur during automated maintenance/ construction of infrastructure' (item 32) above zero compared with those with environmental expertise (45%; n = 22/29) (Fisher's exact test: odds ratio = 0.26; 95% CI = 0.08-0. 79 (4) GI management (7) Street vegetation irrigation (8) Wilder landscapes (9) Smart buildings (10) Vehicle-animal collision detection (16) Animal deterrence (17) Roadworks and transport system management (21) Traffic system noise pollution declines (22) Lighting systems (23) Pollutant mm (24) Waste production mm (25) Environmental law compliance monitoring (26) Traffic system pollutant run-off reductions (33) Water infrastructure mm (34) Water pollution monitoring (35) River intervention mm (36) Human nature interaction increases (41) Pollution decreases enhance recreation (42) Education and citizen science (43) Leisure time increases (44) New employment opportunities in GI mm (45) Transport system and car ownership decreases (54) Wheel-less transport infrastructure (55) Built structure declines (56) Self-repairing built infrastructure (57) Ecosystem service mimicry (58) Pest and invasive species mm (64) Food for urban exploiter species reduces (65) Urban agriculture increases (70) Food waste mm (71) similar pattern was observed for item 38 'RAS will alter the hydrological microclimate (for example, temperature and light), altering aquatic communities and encouraging algal growth' . A significantly greater proportion of non-environmental compared with environmental participants (60% (n = 12/20) and 26% (n = 11/42), respectively) allocated scores above zero (Fisher's exact test; odds ratio = 0.24; 95% CI = 0.07-0.84; ...
... However, it is less clear what changes will occur, or how benefits will be distributed across sectors of society. Environmental injustice is a feature of most cities worldwide, with residents in lower-income areas typically having less access to green space and biodiversity [56][57][58] , while experiencing greater exposure to environmental hazards such as air pollution 59,60 and extreme temperatures 61 . RAS have the potential to mitigate but also compound ...
Technology is transforming societies worldwide. A major innovation is the emergence of robotics and autonomous systems(RAS), which have the potential to revolutionize cities for both people and nature. Nonetheless, the opportunities and challenges associated with RAS for urban ecosystems have yet to be considered systematically. Here, we report the findings of an online horizon scan involving 170 expert participants from 35 countries. We conclude that RAS are likely to transform land use, transport systems and human–nature interactions. The prioritized opportunities were primarily centred on the deployment of RAS for the monitoring and management of biodiversity and ecosystems. Fewer challenges were prioritized. Those that were emphasized concerns surrounding waste from unrecovered RAS, and the quality and interpretation of RAS-collected data. Although the future impacts of RAS for urban ecosystems are difficult to predict, examining potentially important developments early is essential if we are to avoid detrimental consequences but fully realize the benefits.
... A greater proportion of non-environmental participants (76%; n = 22/29) also scored the challenge 'Pollution will increase if RAS are unable to identify or clean up accidents (for example, spillages) that occur during automated maintenance/ construction of infrastructure' (item 32) above zero compared with those with environmental expertise (45%; n = 22/29) (Fisher's exact test: odds ratio = 0.26; 95% CI = 0.08-0. 79 (4) GI management (7) Street vegetation irrigation (8) Wilder landscapes (9) Smart buildings (10) Vehicle-animal collision detection (16) Animal deterrence (17) Roadworks and transport system management (21) Traffic system noise pollution declines (22) Lighting systems (23) Pollutant mm (24) Waste production mm (25) Environmental law compliance monitoring (26) Traffic system pollutant run-off reductions (33) Water infrastructure mm (34) Water pollution monitoring (35) River intervention mm (36) Human nature interaction increases (41) Pollution decreases enhance recreation (42) Education and citizen science (43) Leisure time increases (44) New employment opportunities in GI mm (45) Transport system and car ownership decreases (54) Wheel-less transport infrastructure (55) Built structure declines (56) Self-repairing built infrastructure (57) Ecosystem service mimicry (58) Pest and invasive species mm (64) Food for urban exploiter species reduces (65) Urban agriculture increases (70) Food waste mm (71) similar pattern was observed for item 38 'RAS will alter the hydrological microclimate (for example, temperature and light), altering aquatic communities and encouraging algal growth' . A significantly greater proportion of non-environmental compared with environmental participants (60% (n = 12/20) and 26% (n = 11/42), respectively) allocated scores above zero (Fisher's exact test; odds ratio = 0.24; 95% CI = 0.07-0.84; ...
... However, it is less clear what changes will occur, or how benefits will be distributed across sectors of society. Environmental injustice is a feature of most cities worldwide, with residents in lower-income areas typically having less access to green space and biodiversity [56][57][58] , while experiencing greater exposure to environmental hazards such as air pollution 59,60 and extreme temperatures 61 . RAS have the potential to mitigate but also compound ...
Technology is transforming societies worldwide. A major innovation is the emergence of robotics and autonomous systems (RAS), which have the potential to revolutionize cities for both people and nature. Nonetheless, the opportunities and challenges associated with RAS for urban ecosystems have yet to be considered systematically. Here, we report the findings of an online horizon scan involving 170 expert participants from 35 countries. We conclude that RAS are likely to transform land use, transport systems and human–nature interactions. The prioritized opportunities were primarily centred on the deployment of RAS for the monitoring and management of biodiversity and ecosystems. Fewer challenges were prioritized. Those that were emphasized concerns surrounding waste from unrecovered RAS, and the quality and interpretation of RAS-collected data. Although the future impacts of RAS for urban ecosystems are difficult to predict, examining potentially important developments early is essential if we are to avoid detrimental consequences but fully realize the benefits.
... Perceived unsafety by adults has been associated indeed with lower outdoor physical activity and green space use (Weimann et al., 2017;Hong et al., 2018). More generally, environmental justice literature has shown that low socioeconomic and ethnic minority groups have access to smaller urban parks, with lower quality, maintenance, and safety than more privileged residents (Rigolon, 2016;Rigolon et al., 2018;Nesbitt et al., 2019). For all the above-mentioned reasons, children are a particularly relevant age group to pay attention to in terms of understanding their access and exposure to urban nature and the inequities they might face in reaping the benefits from urban green spaces . ...
A mounting body of research shows strong positive associations between urban nature and child well-being, including benefits related to mental and physical health. However, there is also evidence that children are spending less time in natural environments than previous generations, especially those living in deprived neighborhoods. To date, most studies analyzing children’s (unequal) exposure or access to urban green and blue spaces focus on residential metrics while a school-based perspective, also an essential part of children’s daily experience, is still understudied. The overall goal of this research is to assess spatially the amount and main components of green infrastructure within and around a sample of primary schools (n = 324) in the city of Barcelona, Spain, and to examine the equity implications of its distributional patterns. A multi-method approach based on GIS, correlation and cluster analyses, and an online survey, is used to identify these patterns of inequity according to three main dimensions: socio-demographic disparities across neighborhoods; school type (public, charter and private); and the frequency of outdoor educational activities organized by schools. Results show that schools located in the wealthiest neighborhoods are generally greener, but inequities are not observed for school surrounding green infrastructure indicators such as access to public green spaces or between public and charter schools. Survey results also indicate that greener schools generally organize more nature-based outdoor activities than those with less exposure to urban nature. In the light of these findings, we contend that multiple indicators of green infrastructure and different dimensions of equity should be considered to improve justice in the implementation of school-based re-naturing and outdoor educational programs.
... Engagement. Disparities in access and quality are often determined by local policy, community participation, and action (Nesbitt 2019). In addition, disparities exist in use of spaces. ...
... They find that income levels predict tree access only in some cities, with no significant disparity in park access due to the racial/income status of neighborhoods. In another study spanning ten major US cities, Nesbitt et al. (2019) find that the set of significant predictors of park and tree canopy inequality varies across cities, with income and race having heterogenous impacts. In addition to intercity variability, intra-city variability may exist, but has rarely been explored in the literature. ...
This study examines whether the level of community accessibility to green spaces varies as a function of socioeconomic factors, focusing on three underexplored aspects affecting green inequity assessment: implications of alternative green measures, spatial non-stationarity of socioeconomic impacts, and regional/local context. Using six green measures involving general greenness, tree canopy, developed open space, agricultural lands, parks, green trails, golf courses and sports fields, Geographically Weighted Regression models are developed, and coefficient surfaces are created and compared over two metropolitan areas, Columbus and Atlanta. Second-order effects among individual factors are tested to explore synergistic linkages among them. The results show that the identified patterns of green access inequity vary significantly with the selected green measure. In both metropolitan areas, access to parks, green trails, golf and sports fields turns out to be spatially independent from general greenness and tree canopies. GWR coefficient surfaces show that the socioeconomic-green relationships are spatially heterogeneous and context-dependent, affected by a complex web of forces, including urban heritage, racial and lifestyle diversity, and natural landscape. While natural landscape and income have greater effects in Columbus, racial disparity is dominant in Atlanta. Income-driven disparities are most visible in inner suburban areas and tend to abate in the urban core and exurbs. Urban greening programs need to diversify in terms of green type and location to address localized deficits over a wide urban spectrum.
... Neighborhoods are an integral component of the social determinants of health, with a substantial body of literature reporting associations between the neighborhood in which an individual lives and their risk for multiple health conditions. Prior research suggests a positive, linear relationship between neighborhood wealth and better health outcomes [1], with residents of wealthier neighborhoods generally receiving the health benefits of greater access to green space [2], healthier food options [3], less crime [4], and other amenities, as compared to residents of poorer neighborhoods. Increasingly, researchers have been interested in understanding the population health impacts of changes in neighborhoods over time [5]. ...
Neighborhoods have a profound impact on individual health. There is growing interest in the role of dynamic changes to neighborhoods–including gentrification–on the health of residents. However, research on the association between gentrification and health is limited, partly due to the numerous definitions used to define gentrification. This article presents a systematic review of the current state of literature describing the association between gentrification and health. In addition, it provides a novel framework for addressing important next steps in this research. A total of 1393 unique articles were identified, 122 abstracts were reviewed, and 36 articles published from 2007–2020 were included. Of the 36 articles, 9 were qualitative, 24 were quantitative, and 3 were review papers. There was no universally accepted definition of gentrification; definitions often used socioeconomic variables describing demographics, housing, education, and income. Health outcomes associated with gentrification included self-reported health, preterm birth, mental health conditions, alcohol use, psychosocial factors, and health care utilization, though the direction of this association varied. The results of this review also suggest that the impact of gentrification on health is not uniform across populations. For example, marginalized populations, such as Black residents and the elderly, were impacted more than White and younger residents. In addition, we identified multiples gaps in the research, including the need for a conceptual model, future mechanistic studies, and interventions.
... A growing body of literature has examined which demographic groups have better access to parks through the lens of environmental justice (Boone et al., 2009;Byrne et al., 2009;Nesbitt et al., 2019;Pincetl, 2003;Rigolon, 2016Rigolon, , 2017Sister et al., 2010;Wang and Qiu, 2018;Wolch et al., 2005Wolch et al., , 2014Zhou and Kim, 2013). Previous studies show that low-income people and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities have worse access to parks, and particularly to large parks, in cities around the world (see Rigolon, 2016). ...
Large parks—including regional parks, state parks, and national forests and parks—have particular health, social, and environmental benefits. Thus, promoting equal access to large parks is increasingly becoming a goal of environmental justice activists, planners, and policymakers. Disadvantaged populations (e.g., low-income people of color) have worse walking access to large parks than more privileged groups and might rely on public transportation to access such parks. But empirical studies on whether access to large parks via public transit is justly distributed are lacking. In this paper, we examine the relationship between a novel measure of public transit access to large parks (the T2P index) and neighborhood-level disadvantage (income, race/ethnicity, and age). Using network analysis with public transit feed data and park location data, we calculate the T2P index for every census block group in the 15 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. West. We find some evidence of environmental injustice. A spatial filtering model shows that T2P access increases when a neighborhood has a larger share of non-Hispanic Whites and a smaller share of older adults, but that median household income is not associated with T2P in the entire sample. Also, the T2P index is positively associated with a neighborhood’s levels of transit coverage and frequency. We also find that some regions present significant environmental injustices in T2P whereas others have fewer to no injustices. Transit agencies and park planners could use our T2P index and findings to prioritize transit investment for disadvantaged populations and promote healthy living.
... If our results hold true in other regions, demand for urban and peri-urban greenspace is increasing just at the time we are seeing losses of urban and peri-urban natural areas or vacillating priority for such areas in parts of China [41], and the United States [42]. In addition to the potential loss of such spaces in times of need, we know that in many places, access to urban green space is unequal with several US cities showing that access to urban green space is a function of income and race, i.e. negatively correlated with poor and being a person of color [43]. Given that COVID-19, at least in the USA, is more likely to negatively impact people in lower income brackets, the lack of access to green space may compound the more diffuse, yet pernicious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic [26]. ...
Urban, peri-urban forests and other natural areas provide a wide range of material and non-material benefits to people known as ecosystem services. Access to these areas has been linked to improvements in physical and mental health of local populations. In the Spring of 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced many governments to impose a set of restrictions including the closure of businesses and cancelation of events, social distancing and limitation of gatherings, and movement limitations. During this period of restrictions, we conducted a study assessing the importance of urban and peri-urban forests and other natural areas to people living in and around the city of Burlington, Vermont, USA. We evaluated the use and value changes related to these natural areas before and during the period of restrictions. We received over 400 surveys from the local community. The results show that 69.0% of the respondents had increased or greatly increased their visitation rate to these areas, and 80.6% of respondents considered that the importance of these natural areas and access to them either increased or greatly increased. Moreover 25.8% of the sample had either never, or very rarely accessed their local natural areas before the pandemic, but 69.2% of the first time or infrequent visitors reported that having access to these areas during COVID-19 as ‘very important’. People reported that these areas were important for a wide range of activities from exercise to birding, but also reported values related to reducing stress in a time of global chaos. Our results indicate the increasing demand and value of such areas in times of crisis such as COVID-19. Experts in zoonotic disease predict the potential for more frequent pandemic events, thus predicating the importance for continued funding for, maintenance of and improved access to natural areas to our largely urban civilization.
... Second, both the private ownership of trees and their unequal distribution in private spaces contributes to justice and equity issues (Heynen et al., 2006;Pham et al., 2012;Schwarz et al., 2015;Nesbitt et al., 2019). While everybody benefits from some of the services private trees provide, such as wildlife habitat provision or pleasant views, at least some services that these trees provide remain inaccessible to the public, such as localized microclimate regulation. ...
Local government strategies and policies aimed at increasing tree planting and canopy-cover have become a familiar feature in many cities. However, the role of private urban land areas in a city’s ambitious plans to retain and increase the number of trees and canopy-cover is usually overlooked. In 2019, the University of Melbourne was funded by Horticultural Innovation Australia and partnered with a reference group of local experts, including academics, local government and industry partners, to investigate the mechanisms (regulations and incentives, or “sticks and carrots”) that cities have to retain, protect, and plant trees in private lands.
This academic literature review forms the first milestone of this project. The review highlights the importance of private property rights and planning laws for determining how cities influence what happens to trees on private land. Most urban jurisdictions where private property comes with strong rights and planning laws based on a hierarchical, top-down model, cannot protect trees over an owner’s right to protect their interests which may involve tree removal. However, many Canadian, Australian, US, and European cities have created local laws to protect private trees from being removed or altered. These provisions include regulatory mechanisms, such as requiring tree removal permits, maintaining significant tree registries, applying compensatory value formulas, or requiring arborist reports or building standards, as well as educational and social mechanisms, such as sponsoring volunteer programs and tree-give-away programs.
Some researchers have argued for jurisdictions to remove strict individual tree protections (i.e., those that protect specific trees to be removed, as in significant tree registries, or blanket laws that protect all trees from removal or alteration) because they are not effective. To support this, they have highlighted their limited coverage, such as exclusion of major land uses and medium/small trees, and the high approval rates of tree-removal permits. Enforcing existing regulations continues to be a challenge for many local governments. The effectiveness of existing regulations is dependent on the ability, willingness, and resourcing capacity of the authority that enforces it. Researchers have lauded the use of other mechanisms, such as education, to help protect trees in private lands. However, not only have these mechanisms not been described adequately, but their effectiveness has not been directly measured.
Only a few empirical studies have assessed the effectiveness of tree-protection laws in terms of increased tree numbers or tree-canopy cover. The usual approach is to compare tree-cover or tree numbers among cities with and without these protections between two points in time. These studies have shown mixed results. In the US, tree-protection laws appear to be effective, which means that cities with tree-protections have increased or retained tree-cover over two points of time. However, in other contexts, tree protections are not as effective, since increased tree-cover cannot be explained solely by the effect of these protections. The different context of cities and the different types of tree-protection specifications makes this type of research difficult to conduct.
This research will be complemented by a review of progressive case studies, mining information from non-academic sources, and by a synthesis of the opinions and experiences of international experts on the efficacy of tree-protection mechanisms through interviews and international workshops carried out in during 2019.
... While nature contact is seemingly ''free,'' similar inequities exist across racial, educational, and other socioeconomic factors. 3 This is problematic, as green space is more than just something nice to look at. In addition to documented human health benefits, green space can also influence the health of our planet. ...
Editor's Note:
Debate over the evidence supporting integrative care interventions not infrequently references the challenges funding research on natural agents and practices that are not patentable. The subject of this column goes to the mother of all such interventions, nature herself. Yet in this case, the authors report an awakening of research that affirms nature's power in health and well-being. This is the eighth commentary through JACM's column partnership with the Osher Collaborative for Integrative Medicine through which we seek to stimulate critical conversations via perspectives from the leaders of the Collaborative's seven prominent academically based integrative centers. The author team came together from three of the centers: David Victorson, PhD, at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Christina Luberto, PhD, at the Harvard Medical School, and Karen Koffler, MD, at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. While providing readers an understanding of how to examine nature as medicine, they propose a "goodness of fit" between the precepts of the integrative field and the natural world.-Editor-in-Chief, John Weeks (johnweeks-integrator.com).
... However, several parks in Portland are within historic floodplains and at risk of flooding (Bencivengo et al. 2017). Additionally, green infrastructure often is distributed unequally in the United States, including Oregon: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and those with low incomes frequently lack equitable access to green spaces (Nesbitt et al. 2019). In Portland, many frontline communities lack access to parks and green spaces compared to more affluent communities (Bencivengo et al. 2017). ...
Wildfire dynamics are affected by climate change, past and contemporary land management and human activity, and expansion of non-native invasive grasses. From 1984 through 2018, annual area burned in Oregon increased considerably. Over the next 50 to 100 years, area burned and fire frequency are projected to increase substantially, initially east of the crest of the Cascade Range and then in the western Cascade Range. Over the long term, depending on how vegetation and fire weather shift with climatic changes and fuel and fire management, fire severity also may increas.e
... Previous studies have shown how these patterns are frequently related to already existing socio-economic inequalities, and how marginalised or less privileged social groups often experience difficulties in accessing green space and therefore in enjoying its benefits (e.g. Kabisch and Haase 2014;Nesbitt et al. 2019). However, even though uneven spatial distribution is a key factor for accessibility (Luz et al. 2019), the physical quality and the lack of safety and adequate equipment of such spaces can present further obstacles for particular social groups (Biernacka and Kronenberg 2018; see also Carmona 2010). ...
As urban greening has become a prevalent tool in the context of global climate governance, this paper examines Lisbon’s greening strategies in the context of its election as European Green Capital 2020. While applying an analytical framework based on environmental justice, we perform a cross-analysis of the city-wide greening strategies, together with a peculiar and unusual planning process for a new green space in the neighbourhood of Marvila. Based on qualitative research carried out in-situ, we argue that Lisbon’s greening strategies are based on a discourse of ecological benefits, without aiming to ensure access to green space for different population groups. Procedural justice concerns are widely undervalued, resulting in limited space available for community involvement. We show how urban greening is essentially a multiscalar exercise, impacted by and affecting multiple scales simultaneously. Hence procedural justice deserves a much more prominent role in urban greening, as participation and recognition can give local communities the opportunity to adapt global urban agendas toward their particular needs and desires. Our findings lead us to conclude that environmental justice is ultimately an exercise of multiscalar governance, where local decision-making needs to attend to contextual challenges but also to a long-term sustainability vision at a larger scale.
... Mitigating high nighttime T air is important for all urban residents; however, heatassociated health effects are unevenly distributed. In the U.S., lower income and non-white racial-ethnic groups more often live in areas with less vegetation and more impervious surfaces, which is associated with hotter temperatures [54]. Conversely, individuals with higher incomes more frequently live in areas with greater vegetation cover that they can afford to irrigate, which keeps local microclimates cooler [55,56]. ...
... However, several parks in Portland are within historic floodplains and at risk of flooding (Bencivengo et al. 2017). Additionally, green infrastructure often is distributed unequally in the United States, including Oregon: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and those with low incomes frequently lack equitable access to green spaces (Nesbitt et al. 2019). In Portland, many frontline communities lack access to parks and green spaces compared to more affluent communities (Bencivengo et al. 2017). ...
... This is so despite researchers explicitly identifying the importance of accounting for spatial variation in ES access and demand, especially for spatial prioritization (Bateman et al., 2013;Chan, Shaw, Cameron, Underwood, & Daily, 2006;González-García, Palomo, González, López, & Montes, 2020;Luck, Chan, & Fay, 2009;Luck, Chan, & Klein, 2012;van Jaarsveld et al., 2005;Verhagen, Kukkala, Moilanen, van Teeffelen, & Verburg, 2017;Wolff, Schulp, Kastner, & Verburg, 2017). Similarly, F I G U R E 1 Number of articles published each year with 'ecosystem service*' in the title, abstract or keywords, from the ISI Web of Knowledge and borrowing from the field of vulnerability studies, there is much evidence to suggest that social drivers such as poverty and inequality obstruct access to ES (Berbés-Blázquez, González, & Pascual, 2016;Hicks & Cinner, 2014;Nesbitt, Meitner, Girling, Sheppard, & Lu, 2019;Robards, Schoon, Meek, & Engle, 2011;Wieland et al., 2016). ...
The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has risen to prominence based on its promise to vastly improve environmental decision‐making and to represent nature's many benefits to people. Yet the field has continued to be plagued by fundamental concerns, leading some to believe that the field of ES must mature or be replaced. In this paper, we quantitatively survey a stratified random sample of more than 1,000 articles addressing ES across three decades of scholarship. Our purpose is to examine the field's attention to common critiques regarding insufficient credible valuations of realistic changes to services; an unjustified preoccupation with monetary valuation; and too little social and policy research (e.g. questions of access to and demand for services). We found that very little of the ES literature includes valuation of biophysical change (2.4%), despite many biophysical studies of services (24%). An initially small but substantially rising number of papers address crucial policy (14%) and social dimensions, including access, demand and the social consequences of change (5.8%). As well, recent years have seen a significant increase in non‐monetary valuation (from 0% to 2.5%). Ecosystem service research has, we summarize, evolved in meaningful ways. But some of its goals remain unmet, despite the promise to improve environmental decisions, in part because of a continued pre‐occupation with numerical valuation often without appropriate biophysical grounding. Here we call for a next generation of research: Integrative biophysical‐social research that characterizes ES change, and is coupled with multi‐metric and qualitative valuation, and context‐appropriate decision‐making. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
... The lack of open space in which people can keep physically distant, and the discriminatory policing of open spaces (Jouvenal and Brice-Saddler 2020) place an unequal burden on working-class communities and communities of color that can quite literally be a matter of life and death. Even before the pandemic, there was widespread evidence of green inequity based on income, education, and race (Nesbitt et al. 2019). The crisis should refocus attention on the deficiencies in green space and contact with nature at the hyper-local level (Surico 2020). ...
Nature-based solutions (NBS) include a wide range of ecosystem restoration and green infrastructure projects that are meant to also create economic and social benefits. In practice, NBS are increasingly tied to an outward-looking, post-industrial urban growth agenda. This focus ignores interventions which are less visible, smaller scale, and serve a working-class population in still-industrial areas of the city. In this short piece, we consider various small-scale interventions undertaken by the Newtown Creek Alliance to accomplish demonstrable environmental improvements along the heavily polluted industrial waterway of Newtown Creek in New York City. Though largely invisible within the larger conversation on NBS and urban development, these interventions have the potential for substantive environmental improvement that benefits existing long-term residents and users rather than being a tool to attract new residents and luxury development. We offer this example as an attempt to diversify the “best practice” case studies that will inform future NBS growth.
... In the United States (US), children spend three times as many hours on the computer or watching television as they do playing outdoors [3]. Furthermore, access to nature is an environmental justice issue: individuals who are Latinx, low-income, and/or with low levels of education have less access to vegetation [4,5]. ...
Background
Latinx children in the United States are at high risk for nature-deficit disorder, heat-related illness, and physical inactivity. We developed the Green Schoolyards Project to investigate how green features—trees, gardens, and nature trails—in school parks impact heat index (i.e., air temperature and relative humidity) within parks, and physical activity levels and socioemotional well-being of these children. Herein, we present novel methods for a) observing children’s interaction with green features and b) measuring heat index and children’s behaviors in a natural setting, and a selection of baseline results.
Methods
During two September weeks (high temperature) and one November week (moderate temperature) in 2019, we examined three joint-use elementary school parks in Central Texas, United States, serving predominantly low-income Latinx families. To develop thermal profiles for each park, we installed 10 air temperature/relative humidity sensors per park, selecting sites based on land cover, land use, and even spatial coverage. We measured green features within a geographic information system. In a cross-sectional study, we used an adapted version of System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) to assess children’s physical activity levels and interactions with green features. In a cohort study, we equipped 30 3rd and 30 4th grade students per school during recess with accelerometers and Global Positioning System devices, and surveyed these students regarding their connection to nature. Baseline analyses included inverse distance weighting for thermal profiles and summing observed counts of children interacting with trees.
Results
In September 2019, average daily heat index ranged 2.0 °F among park sites, and maximum daily heat index ranged from 103.4 °F (air temperature = 33.8 °C; relative humidity = 55.2%) under tree canopy to 114.1 °F (air temperature = 37.9 °C; relative humidity = 45.2%) on an unshaded playground. 10.8% more girls and 25.4% more boys interacted with trees in September than in November.
Conclusions
We found extreme heat conditions at select sites within parks, and children positioning themselves under trees during periods of high heat index. These methods can be used by public health researchers and practitioners to inform the redesign of greenspaces in the face of climate change and health inequities.
... Shackleton and Shackleton (2016) found that higher education was associated with higher knowledge of invasive alien species. In addition, higher income groups are most likely to have diverse environmental experiences such as larger gardens or easier access to natural areas (Nesbitt et al. 2019), which provides them with more opportunities to encounter invasive species. ...
Effective management of invasive plants conserves biodiversity values, reduces economic costs, and minimizes negative impacts on human health. Fostering people’s awareness of invasive plants is one of the most cost-effective approaches in preventing the spread and introduction of invasive plants. Therefore, this study aims to understand (1) people’s knowledge and risk perceptions, (2) associations between risk perceptions and demographics, and (3) people’s willingness to support current management strategies in the Metro Vancouver region, British Columbia, Canada. An online survey was carried out and received 356 responses across the region. We found that people’s knowledge and risk perceptions of invasive plants were ecologically oriented. Older respondents perceived higher risks of invasive plants. Among respondents of the same age, annual income higher than $50,000 was associated with higher levels of risk perception. Respondents who had professional and/or recreational group memberships perceived higher economic risks. Respondents highly supported activities that they could take part in directly, such as community invasive pulls and native species planting. Overall, our findings aid managers in allocating appropriate funding or tailoring outreach efforts to different aspects of invasive plants as well as groups/communities where people’s knowledge and risk perceptions of invasive plants are low.
... 1 Non-native ethnic groups, given that their location of living could be affected by their specific position in the housing and labour market (Jesdale, Morello-Frosch, & Cushing, 2013;Mitchell & Chakraborty, 2018); 2 Housing tenure groups, given that heatwave mortality can be higher in the low-quality buildings and access to green is likely to be lower in poor neighbourhoods (Rosenthal, Kinney, & Metzger, 2014;Tan & Samsudin, 2017); 3 Age groups, given that different age groups may dwell in different locations of a city or region and thus be exposed to different levels of heat (Madrigano, Ito, Johnson, Kinney, & Matte, 2015;Vargo, Stone, Habeeb, Liu, & Russell, 2016); 4 Income groups, given that access to green areas could differ across different income groups and income disparities between central and fringe areas can give an income dimension to exposure to urban heat islands (Nesbitt, Meitner, Girling, Sheppard, & Lu, 2019;Park & Guldmann, 2020); 5 Gender groups, given that gender disparities in the labour market and location of living can potentially cause different exposure to summer surface heat (Burkart et al., 2011;Rey et al., 2009). ...
Severe land surface temperature (LST) significantly impacts residents' thermal discomfort and can be life-threatening during warm seasons. Therefore, it is essential to identify the inequalities in LST exposure, i.e. the socioeconomic groups who are over- or underexposed to LST. There is a knowledge gap in the literature: there is no previous study which differentiates between national-scale inequalities -i.e. inequalities apparent in all location of a country, and the local-scale inequalities -i.e. inequalities existing in some areas of a country. Employing a semi-parametric geographically weighted regression model to study LST in Dutch residential zones in the summer of 2014, the results of this study show that two national-scale inequalities are significant: overexposure of high-income groups and underexposure of the owners of high-value properties. Additionally, eight local-scale inequalities are identified. Among the latter, ethnic inequalities, overexposure of Non-western and Western immigrants, found to be the most severe and frequent at the local scale. Additionally, females are often the second most overexposed to LST at the local-scale. To a lesser degree Rental dwellings and Population age 15-24 are the second most overexposed of a zone's population. In the end, the results and policy implications are discussed.
... Poor economic performance could lead to less access to parks, and thus compound the more negative impacts of COVID-19. This is consistent with Larson et al. (2016), Laster Pirtle (2020) and Nesbitt et al. (2019), who found unequal access to urban green spaces in US cities, with access being negatively correlated with poverty rate. The correlation analysis indicated that all the environmental performance factors had significant positive associations with park visitation. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 33 million confirmed cases and over 1 million deaths globally, as of 1 October 2020. During the lockdown and restrictions placed on public activities and gatherings, green spaces have become one of the only sources of resilience amidst the coronavirus pandemic, in part because of their positive effects on psychological, physical and social cohesion and spiritual wellness. This study analyzes the impacts of COVID-19 and government response policies to the pandemic on park visitation at global, regional and national levels and assesses the importance of parks during this global pandemic. The data we collected primarily from Google’s Community Mobility Reports and the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker. The results for most countries included in the analysis show that park visitation has increased since February 16th, 2020 compared to visitor numbers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Restrictions on social gathering, movement, and the closure of workplace and indoor recreational places, are correlated with more visits to parks. Stay-at-home restrictions and government stringency index are negatively associated with park visits at a global scale. Demand from residents for parks and outdoor green spaces has increased since the outbreak began, and highlights the important role and benefits provided by parks, especially urban and community parks, under the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide recommendations for park managers and other decision-makers in terms of park management and planning during health crises, as well as for park design and development. In particular, parks could be utilized during pandemics to increase the physical and mental health and social well-being of individuals.
... Although the benefits of urban green infrastructure (UGI) are becoming more widely appreciated, many towns and cities still suffer from insufficient amounts (by various measures) and inequitable distribution of UGI (McConnachie, Shackleton, & McGregor, 2008;Shanahan, Lin, Gaston, Bush, & Fuller, 2014;Watkins & Gerrish, 2018;Venter, Shackleton, van Staden, Selomane, & Masterson, 2020). This is more common in, although not restricted to, poor neighbourhoods, towns and countries (Gwedla & Shackleton, 2017;Shen, Sun, & Che, 2017;Rigolon, Browning, & Jennings, 2018;Nesbitt, Meitner, Girling, Sheppard, & Lu, 2019). Poorer regions also frequently lack sufficient financial or human resources to regularly maintain what UGI there is (Chishaleshale, Shackleton, Gambiza, & Gumbo, 2015). ...
Public urban green spaces are essential for urban sustainability and the physical and mental wellbeing of urban residents. Yet in some settings they may face a number of threats, ranging from land transformation and development, through to poor maintenance and vandalism. It has been posited that community engagement is a crucial strategy in addressing or minimising many of these threats. Here we report on the condition of 11 newly created or renovated parks in poorer neighbourhoods of six towns over a three year period, along with in-depth interviews regarding the sentiments of local residents and officials to the (re)creation of the parks and their subsequent deterioration. The opportunistic monitoring showed a steady degeneration in all the parks evidenced through limited maintenance and extensive damage to or removal of trees, fencing, amenities and infrastructure, representing a significant loss of public amenity and investment. The damage was wrought by both humans and livestock. Local residents attributed the decline to several reasons, of which a lack of community engagement was prominent, including on what the site should have been used for, their official opening ceremony, and care. The park in the best condition for the longest was the one with the most community consultation, but that too suffered extensive damage once an opening was inadvertently made through which cattle could subsequently enter. This paper emphasises that the creation and provision of urban recreational parks is only one part of the process, which alone is not sufficient to ensure their use and appreciation, but rather that the process requires deep, meaningful and respectful engagement with local communities.
... Results of models such as those we used here could be integrated into studies on environmental justice or distributive equity, whereby spatial distribution of ecosystem services is examined in the context of, e.g., socio-economic resources (Maantay, 2002). Similar approaches have been taken to assess the equitable distribution of vegetation in cities (Nesbitt, Meitner, Girling, Sheppard, & Lu, 2019)transitioning to ecosystem service evaluation could help illuminate additional tradeoffs between sources and users of ecosystem services (Baró et al., 2016). ...
With more than half the world’s population living in urban areas, most of people’s potential to receive ecosystem service benefits occurs in cities. However a straightforward, replicable approach to quantifying multiple urban ecosystem services has yet to emerge, so urban planning decisions often overlook the value nature could provide people. Urbanization is likely to increase development pressure on many forms of green spaces across cities, particularly for golf courses that represent a substantial part of urban areas in the United States. Here, we developed a replicable process to assess how the supply of three urban ecosystem services (urban cooling, stormwater nutrient retention, and pollinator abundance) change with alternative land uses, using golf course development in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in Minnesota, USA as a case study. We developed a replicable framework to assess changes in urban ecosystem services and found that green infrastructure provided by golf courses provide an intermediate amount of services compared to five other land use options. Combining land cover with land use zoning data to parameterize existing ecosystem service models for urban use is an important advancement. Our study describes how to combine land use with land cover and provides insights for urban planners interested in exploring public consequences of land cover and land use changes in cities. The approach we’ve developed can be applied to land use change scenarios in other cities with comparable data and help integrate the value of nature into urban planning.
... If our results hold true in other regions, demand for urban and peri-urban greenspace is increasing just at the time we are seeing losses of urban and peri-urban natural areas or vacillating priority for such areas in parts of China [41], and the United States [42]. In addition to the potential loss of such spaces in times of need, we know that in many places, access to urban green space is unequal with several US cities showing that access to urban green space is a function of income and race, i.e. negatively correlated with poor and being a person of color [43]. Given that COVID-19, at least in the USA, is more likely to negatively impact people in lower income brackets, the lack of access to green space may compound the more diffuse, yet pernicious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic [26]. ...
Urban, peri-urban forests and other natural areas provide a wide range of material and non-material benefits to people known as ecosystem services. Access to these areas has been linked to benefits for physical and mental health of local populations. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced many governments to impose a set of restrictions including the closure of businesses, cancelation of public events and schooling, social dis-tancing, limitations on the size of social gatherings, and travel restrictions. During this period of restrictions, we conducted a study assessing the importance of urban and peri-urban forests and other natural areas to people living in and around the city of Burlington, Vermont, USA. We evaluated the self-reported use and changes in personal importance related to these natural areas before and during the period of restrictions. We received over 400 responses to our field survey. The results show that 69.0% of the respondents had increased or greatly increased their visitation rate to our natural areas and urban forests, and 80.6% of respondents considered that the importance of these areas, and access to them, either increased or greatly increased. Moreover 25.8% of the sample had either never, or very rarely accessed their local natural areas before the pandemic, but 69.2% of the first time or infrequent visitors reported that having access to these areas during COVID-19 as 'very important'. People reported that these areas were important for a wide range of activities from exercise to birding, but also reported values related to reducing stress in a time of global chaos. Our results indicate the increasing demand and value of such areas in times of crisis such as COVID-19. Experts in zoonotic disease predict the potential for more frequent pandemic events, thus predicating the importance for continued funding for, maintenance of, and improved access to, natural areas to our largely urban civilization.
... In fact, some studies conducted in compact Mediterranean cities, whose urban form is typically space-limited [27], have shown how the contribution of every green space-irrespectively of its size-will become even more critical for citizen welfare and for the city adaptative capacity in terms of thermal regulation, air quality improvement, water retention, and energy performance [28][29][30]. Moreover, recent research shows strong evidence on how the number of green areas and the greater access to them have an important role in creating a culture of well-being and in reducing social disparities [31]. An increased exposure to green spaces is associated with positive health outcomes (better cognitive function in adults, improved mental health, or lower risk of a number of chronic diseases, among others), social cohesion, and improved urban dwellers´perception of well-being [32][33][34][35]. ...
Present-day dense cities are increasingly affected by the impacts associated with climate change. The recurrence of extreme climate events is projected to be intensified in cities in the next decades, especially in the most vulnerable areas of the world, such as the Mediterranean region. In this context, the urban green infrastructure (UGI) is presented as a nature-based solution that directly contributes to climate change mitigation in Mediterranean compact cities and improves health, social, welfare, and environmental conditions for inhabitants. This research sets out a manageable framework to define, locate, and categorize more functional green urban and peri-urban areas in a dense Mediterranean city. It takes spatial distribution, extension, and the capacity to improve inhabitants' wellbeing through the provision of ecosystem services as classification criteria. Results show a scenario with a greater functional green surface available for the citizens to be managed. Identified areas have been categorized as cores, nodes, links, and green spaces defined as "other" areas. In particular, the latter play a significant role at social, structural, and ecological levels. The study showcases that rethinking urban design and strategic decision-making around these areas can enhance green equity in Mediterranean dense cities, their capacity to better deal with environmental extremes, and the inhabitants' engagement with a culture of sustainability and wellbeing.
Background: Latinx children in the United States are at high risk for nature-deficit disorder, heat-related illness, and physical inactivity. We developed the Green Schoolyards Project to investigate how green features—trees, gardens, and nature trails—in school parks impact heat index (i.e., air temperature and relative humidity) within parks, and physical activity levels and socioemotional well-being of these children. Herein, we present novel methods for a) observing children’s interaction with green features and b) measuring heat index and children’s behaviors in a natural setting, and a selection of baseline results.
Methods: During two September weeks (high temperature) and one November week (moderate temperature) in 2019, we examined three joint-use elementary school parks in Central Texas, United States, serving predominantly low-income Latinx families. To develop thermal profiles for each park, we installed 10 air temperature/relative humidity sensors per park, selecting sites based on land cover, land use, and even spatial coverage. We measured green features within a geographic information system. In a cross-sectional study, we used an adapted version of System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) to assess children’s physical activity levels and interactions with green features. In a cohort study, we equipped 30 3rd and 30 4th grade students per school during recess with accelerometers and Global Positioning System devices, and surveyed these students regarding their connection to nature. Baseline analyses included inverse distance weighting for thermal profiles and summing observed counts of children interacting with trees.
Results: In September 2019, average daily heat index ranged 2.0°F among park sites, and maximum daily heat index ranged from 103.4°F (air temperature = 33.8°C; relative humidity = 55.2%) under tree canopy to 114.1°F (air temperature = 37.9°C; relative humidity = 45.2%) on an unshaded playground. 10.8% more girls and 25.4% more boys interacted with trees in September than in November.
Conclusions: We found extreme heat conditions at select sites within parks, and children positioning themselves under trees during periods of high heat index. These methods can be used by public health researchers and practitioners to inform the redesign of greenspaces in the face of climate change and health inequities.
Background: Latinx children in the United States are at high risk for nature-deficit disorder, heat-related illness, and physical inactivity. We developed the Green Schoolyards Project to investigate how green features—trees, gardens, and nature trails—in school parks impact heat index (i.e., air temperature and relative humidity) within parks, and physical activity levels and socioemotional well-being of these children. Herein, we present novel methods for a) observing children’s interaction with green features and b) measuring heat index and children’s behaviors in a natural setting, and a selection of baseline results.
Methods: During two September weeks (high temperature) and one November week (moderate temperature) in 2019, we examined three joint-use elementary school parks in Central Texas, United States, serving predominantly low-income Latinx families. To develop thermal profiles for each park, we installed 10 air temperature/relative humidity sensors per park, selecting sites based on land cover, land use, and even spatial coverage. We measured green features within a geographic information system. In a cross-sectional study, we used an adapted version of System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) to assess children’s physical activity levels and interactions with green features. In a cohort study, we equipped 30 3rd and 30 4th grade students per school during recess with accelerometers and Global Positioning System devices, and surveyed these students regarding their connection to nature. Baseline analyses included inverse distance weighting for thermal profiles and summing observed counts of children interacting with trees.
Results: In September 2019, average daily heat index ranged 2.0°F among park sites, and maximum daily heat index ranged from 103.4°F (air temperature = 33.8°C; relative humidity = 55.2%) under tree canopy to 114.1°F (air temperature = 37.9°C; relative humidity = 45.2%) on an unshaded playground. 10.8% more girls and 25.4% more boys interacted with trees in September than in November.
Conclusions: We found extreme heat conditions at select sites within parks, and children positioning themselves under trees during periods of high heat index. These methods can be used by public health researchers and practitioners to inform the redesign of greenspaces in the face of climate change and health inequities.
Background: Low-income Latinx children in the United States are vulnerable to nature-deficit disorder, heat-related illness, and physical inactivity. We developed the Green Schoolyards Project to investigate how green features—trees, gardens, and nature trails—in school parks impact heat index (i.e., air temperature and relative humidity) within parks, and physical activity levels and socioemotional well-being of these children. Herein, we present baseline results of this project and its novel methods for a) observing children’s interaction with green features and b) measuring heat index and children’s behaviors in a natural setting.
Methods: During two September weeks (high temperature) and one November week (moderate temperature) in 2019, we examined three joint-use elementary school parks in Central Texas, United States, serving predominantly low-income Latinx families. To develop thermal profiles for each park, we installed 10 air temperature/relative humidity sensors per park, selecting sites based on land cover, land use, and even spatial coverage. We measured green features within a geographic information system. In a cross-sectional study, we used an adapted version of System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) to assess children’s physical activity levels and interactions with green features. In a cohort study, we equipped 30 3rd and 30 4th grade students per school during recess with accelerometers and Global Positioning System devices, and surveyed these students regarding their connection to nature. Baseline analyses included inverse distance weighting for thermal profiles and summing observed counts of children interacting with trees.
Results: In September 2019, average daily heat index ranged 2.0°F among park sites, and maximum daily heat index ranged from 103.4°F (air temperature = 33.8°C; relative humidity = 55.2%) under tree canopy to 114.1°F (air temperature = 37.9°C; relative humidity = 45.2%) on an unshaded playground. 10.8% more girls and 25.4% more boys interacted with trees in September than in November.
Conclusions: We found extreme heat conditions at select sites within parks, and children positioning themselves under trees during periods of high heat index. These methods can be used by public health researchers and practitioners to inform the redesign of greenspaces in the face of climate change and health inequities.
This chapter presents one way to plan for using nature as a solution: biophilic design and planning. Biophilic cities represent a new vision of global urbanization that puts nature at the center of design and planning. It calls for a shift from seeing cities as places where there are discrete elements of nature to a more integrative and holistic sense of nature. This vision recognizes as well the multiple benefits of immersive nature in cities. Biophilic cities are resilient and sustainable cities, at once providing many ecological and adaptive services, while also providing essential benefits in the form of mental and physical health. In this chapter we explore this vision in some detail and lay out a series of planning principles to help guide cities.
Background: Latinx children in the United States are at high risk for nature-deficit disorder, heat-related illness, and physical inactivity. We developed the Green Schoolyards Project to investigate how green features—trees, gardens, and nature trails—in school parks impact heat index (i.e., air temperature and relative humidity) within parks, and physical activity levels and socioemotional well-being of these children. Herein, we present novel methods for a) observing children’s interaction with green features and b) measuring heat index and children’s behaviors in a natural setting, and a selection of baseline results.
Methods: During two September weeks (high temperature) and one November week (moderate temperature) in 2019, we examined three joint-use elementary school parks in Central Texas, United States, serving predominantly low-income Latinx families. To develop thermal profiles for each park, we installed 10 air temperature/relative humidity sensors per park, selecting sites based on land cover, land use, and even spatial coverage. We measured green features within a geographic information system. In a cross-sectional study, we used an adapted version of System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) to assess children’s physical activity levels and interactions with green features. In a cohort study, we equipped 30 3rd and 30 4th grade students per school during recess with accelerometers and Global Positioning System devices, and surveyed these students regarding their connection to nature. Baseline analyses included inverse distance weighting for thermal profiles and summing observed counts of children interacting with trees.
Results: In September 2019, average daily heat index ranged 2.0°F among park sites, and maximum daily heat index ranged from 103.4°F (air temperature = 33.8°C; relative humidity = 55.2%) under tree canopy to 114.1°F (air temperature = 37.9°C; relative humidity = 45.2%) on an unshaded playground. 10.8% more girls and 25.4% more boys interacted with trees in September than in November.
Conclusions: We found extreme heat conditions at select sites within parks, and children positioning themselves under trees during periods of high heat index. These methods can be used by public health researchers and practitioners to inform the redesign of greenspaces in the face of climate change and health inequities.
Urban nature can alleviate distress and provide space for safe recreation during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, nature is often less available in low-income and communities of color—the same communities hardest hit by COVID-19. We quantified nature inequality across all urbanized areas in the US and linked nature access to COVID-19 case rates for ZIP Codes in 17 states. Areas with majority persons of color had both higher case rates and less greenness. Furthermore, when controlling for socio-demographic variables, an increase of 0.1 in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was associated with a 4.1% decrease in COVID-19 incidence rates (95% confidence interval: 0.9-6.8%). Across the US, block groups with lower-income and majority persons of color are less green and have fewer parks. Thus, communities most impacted by COVID-19 also have the least nature nearby. Given urban nature is associated with both human health and biodiversity, these results have far-reaching implications both during and beyond the pandemic.
There is ample evidence that urban trees benefit the physical, mental, and social health of urban residents. The environmental justice hypothesis posits that environmental amenities are inequitably low in poor and minority communities, and predicts these communities experience fewer urban environmental benefits. Some previous research has found that urban forest cover is inequitably distributed by race, though other studies have found no relationship or negative inequity. These conflicting results and the single-city nature of the current literature suggest a need for a research synthesis. Using a systematic literature search and meta-analytic techniques, we examined the relationship between urban forest cover and race. First, we estimated the average (unconditional) relationship between urban forest cover and race across studies (studies = 40; effect sizes = 388). We find evidence of significant race-based inequity in urban forest cover. Second, we included characteristics of the original studies and study sites in meta-regressions to illuminate drivers of variation of urban forest cover between studies. Our meta-regressions reveal that the relationship varies across racial groups and by study methodology. Models reveal significant inequity on public land and that environmental and social characteristics of cities help explain variation across studies. As tree planting and other urban forestry programs proliferate, urban forestry professionals are encouraged to consider the equity consequences of urban forestry activities, particularly on public land.
Do urban residents experience societal benefits derived from urban forests equitably? We conducted a broad-scale spatial analysis of the relationship between urban greenery and socioeconomic factors in the Portland metropolitan area. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index was derived from National Agriculture Imagery Program images to map urban vegetation cover, and Outdoor Recreation and Conservation Area data were used to identify green spaces. These measures of urban greenery were correlated with census data to identify socioeconomic factors associated with high levels of green inequity. Population density, house age, income, and race were strongly correlated with vegetation cover. However, the distribution of green spaces showed a much weaker relationship with socioeconomic factors. These results highlight the importance of different measures of access to urban greenery and suggest potential solutions to the problem of urban green inequity. Cities can use our methods to conduct targeted urban forest management to maximize urban forest benefits received by residents.
We argue that existing studies underestimate the degree that racial change leads to residential segregation in post-Civil Rights American neighborhoods. This is because previous studies only measure the presence of racial groups in neighborhoods, not the degree of integration among those groups. As a result, those studies do not detect gradual racial succession that ends in racially segregated neighborhoods. We demonstrate how a new approach based on growth mixture models can be used to identify patterns of racial change that distinguish between durable integration and gradual racial succession. We use this approach to identify common trajectories of neighborhood racial change among Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians from 1970 to 2010 in the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston metropolitan areas. We show that many nominally integrated neighborhoods have experienced gradual succession. For Blacks this succession has caused the gradual concentric diusion of the ghetto while Latino and Asian growth has dispersed throughout both cities and suburbs in the metropolitan areas. Durable integration, meanwhile, has come about largely in the suburbs.
Because a large proportion of the urban forest grows on private property, it is necessary to have broad community support for urban forestry. As people from all over the world live in Canadian cities, it was hypothesized that people with different cultural backgrounds would have different perceptions of the urban forest. This hypothesis was tested by (1) researching different landscaping traditions; (2) interviewing members of four different communities; and (3) conducting vegetation inventories. Inventory and interview data provided a consistent picture of the four communities. The British community reacted the most positively to shade trees, they also expressed the greatest willingness to plant shade trees, had the most shade trees per square meter on their properties, and were the only group that liked naturalized parks (hiking paths). The Chinese community showed less yard maintenance than the other communities, and many of the Chinese indicated that they did not want to add trees to their property. The Chinese responded more favorably than the other groups to photographs depicting landscapes free of trees. Italian and Portuguese communities emphasized fruit trees and vegetable gardens, and responded negatively toward shade trees when these were in conflict with their gardens. These cultural differences are largely consistent with the traditional use of trees in British, Mediterranean and Chinese landscaping, and appear to be maintained among North American immigrant populations.
This study examines the distributional equity of urban tree canopy (UTC) cover for Baltimore, MD, Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Raleigh, NC, Sacramento, CA, and Washington, D.C. using high spatial resolution land cover data and census data. Data are analyzed at the Census Block Group levels using Spearman's correlation, ordinary least squares regression (OLS), and a spatial autoregressive model (SAR). Across all cities there is a strong positive correlation between UTC cover and median household income. Negative correlations between race and UTC cover exist in bivariate models for some cities, but they are generally not observed using multivariate regressions that include additional variables on income, education, and housing age. SAR models result in higher r-square values compared to the OLS models across all cities, suggesting that spatial autocorrelation is an important feature of our data. Similarities among cities can be found based on shared characteristics of climate, race/ethnicity, and size. Our findings suggest that a suite of variables, including income, contribute to the distribution of UTC cover. These findings can help target simultaneous strategies for UTC goals and environmental justice concerns.
Several social theories have been proposed to explain the uneven distribution of vegetation in urban res-idential areas: population density, social stratification, lux-ury effect, and ecology of prestige. We evaluate these theories using a combination of demographic and socio-economic predictors of vegetative cover on all residential lands in New York City. We use diverse data sources including the City's property database, time-series demo-graphic and socio-economic data from the US Census, and land cover data from the University of Vermont's Spatial Analysis Lab (SAL). These data are analyzed using a multi-model inferential, spatial econometrics approach. We also examine the distribution of vegetation within distinct mar-ket categories using Claritas' Potential Rating Index for Zipcode Markets (PRIZM TM) database. These categories can be disaggregated, corresponding to the four social theories. We compare the econometric and categorical results for validation. Models associated with ecology of prestige theory are more effective for predicting the distri-bution of vegetation. This suggests that private, residential patterns of vegetation, reflecting the consumption of envi-ronmentally relevant goods and services, are associated with different lifestyles and lifestages. Further, our spatial and temporal analyses suggest that there are significant spatial and temporal dependencies that have theoretical and methodological implications for understanding urban eco-logical systems. These findings may have policy implica-tions. Decision makers may need to consider how to most effectively reach different social groups in terms of mes-sages and messengers in order to advance land management practices and achieve urban sustainability.
Climate change will have unavoidable impacts on urban systems and populations, especially in Asia where many large cities are exposed. Climate adaptation will be essential, and planning for adaptation can be simplified through operationalizing concepts of climate resilience and vulnerability. This article reviews concepts and theories in a range of diverse fields to illustrate how the general notion of urban climate resilience can be developed into an operational framework for planning practitioners. The framework integrates theoretical and empirical knowledge of the factors contributing to resilience with processes for translating those concepts into practice. The framework includes characteristics of urban systems, the agents (people and organizations) that depend on and manage those systems, institutions that link systems and agents, and patterns of exposure to climate change. It operationalizes these concepts through structured and iterative shared learning approaches that allow local planners to define these factors in their own context, in order to develop practical strategies for local action. The viability of the framework is demonstrated through examples from resilience planning activities undertaken in 10 cities across Asia through the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
North America contains some of the most urbanized landscapes in the world. In the United States (U.S.) and Canada, approximately 80 % of the population is urban, with Mexico slightly less (Kaiser Family Foundation 2013). Population growth combined with economic growth has fueled recent urban land expansion in North America. Between 1970 and 2000, urban land area expanded at a rate of 3.31 % (Seto et al. 2011) creating unique challenges for conserving biodiversity and maintaining regional and local ecosystem services.
The aesthetic, economic, and environmental benefits of urban trees are well recognized. Previous research has focused on understanding
how a variety of social and environmental factors are related to urban vegetation. The aim is often to provide planners with
information that will improve residential neighborhood design, or guide tree planting campaigns encouraging the cultivation
of urban trees. In this paper we examine a broad range of factors we hypothesize are correlated to urban tree canopy heterogeneity
in Salt Lake County, Utah. We use a multi-model inference approach to evaluate the relative contribution of these factors
to observed heterogeneity in urban tree canopy cover, and discuss the implications of our analysis. An important contribution
of this work is an explicit attempt to account for the confounding effect of neighborhood age in understanding the relationship between human and environmental factors, and urban tree canopy. We use regression analysis
with interaction terms to assess the effects of 15 human and environmental variables on tree canopy abundance while holding
neighborhood age constant. We demonstrate that neighborhood age is an influential covariate that affects how the human and
environmental factors relate to the abundance of neighborhood tree canopy. For example, we demonstrate that in new neighborhoods
a positive relationship exists between street density and residential tree canopy, but the relationship diminishes as the
neighborhood ages. We conclude that to better understand the determinants of urban tree canopy in residential areas it is
important to consider both human and environmental factors while accounting for neighborhood age.
For older adults, social integration and the strength of social ties are profoundly important predictors of well-being and longevity. Can the physical environment be designed to promote older adults' social integration with their neighbors? We examined this possibility by testing the relationships between varying amount of exposure to green outdoor common spaces and the strength of ties among neighbors. Results of interviews with 91 older adults (between the ages of 64 and 91 years) from one inner-city neighborhood show that the use of green outdoor common spaces predicted both the strength of neighborhood social ties and sense of community. Although the strength of these relationships were modest, the findings suggest that the characteristics of outdoor common spaces can play a role in the formation and maintenance of social ties among older adult residents of inner-city neighborhoods. The results have implications for designers, managers, and residents of housing developments.
Depending on what is in the view, looking out the window may provide numerous opportunities for restoration. Unlike other restorative opportunities, however, window viewing is more frequent and for brief moments at a time. The setting is also experienced from afar rather than while being in it. A study conducted at six low-rise apartment communities, using a survey with both verbal and visual material, provides considerable support for the premise that having natural elements or settings in the view from the window contributes substantially to residents’ satisfaction with their neighborhood and with diverse aspects of their sense of well-being. Views of built elements, by contrast, affected satisfaction but not well-being. Views of the sky and weather did not have a substantial effect on either outcome. The potential of nature content in the view from home to contribute so significantly to satisfaction and well-being suggests clear action mandates.
This article examines the distribution of parks in Baltimore, Maryland, as an environmental justice issue. In addition to established methods for measuring distribution of and access to parks, we employ a novel park service area approach that uses Thiessen polygons and dasymetric reapportioning of census data to measure potential park congestion as an equity outcome measure. We find that a higher proportion of African Americans have access to parks within walking distance, defined as 400 meters or less, than whites, but whites have access to more acreage of parks within walking distance than blacks. A needs-based assessment shows that areas with the highest need have the best access to parks but also have access to less acreage of parks compared to low-need areas. Park service areas that are predominantly black have higher park congestion than areas that are predominantly white, although differences are less apparent at the city level than at the metropolitan level. Following Iris Young and others, we argue that conceptions of justice must move beyond distributive justice and address the social and institutional mechanisms that generate inequities. For Baltimore, we examine how segregation ordinances, racial covenants, improvement associations, the Home Owners Loan Corporation, and the Parks and Recreation Board created separate black spaces historically underserved with parks. These mechanisms ultimately fueled middle-class flight and suburbanization and black inheritance of much of Baltimore's space, including its parks. If justice demands just distribution justly achieved, the present-day pattern of parks in Baltimore should be interpreted as environmental injustice.
Objective:
We examined the distribution of heat risk-related land cover (HRRLC) characteristics across racial/ethnic groups and degrees of residential segregation.
Methods:
Block group-level tree canopy and impervious surface estimates were derived from the 2001 National Land Cover Dataset for densely populated urban areas of the United States and Puerto Rico, and linked to demographic characteristics from the 2000 Census. Racial/ethnic groups in a given block group were considered to live in HRRLC if at least half their population experienced the absence of tree canopy and at least half of the ground was covered by impervious surface (roofs, driveways, sidewalks, roads). Residential segregation was characterized for metropolitan areas in the United States and Puerto Rico using the multigroup dissimilarity index.
Results:
After adjustment for ecoregion and precipitation, holding segregation level constant, non-Hispanic blacks were 52% more likely (95% CI: 37%, 69%), non-Hispanic Asians 32% more likely (95% CI: 18%, 47%), and Hispanics 21% more likely (95% CI: 8%, 35%) to live in HRRLC conditions compared with non-Hispanic whites. Within each racial/ethnic group, HRRLC conditions increased with increasing degrees of metropolitan area-level segregation. Further adjustment for home ownership and poverty did not substantially alter these results, but adjustment for population density and metropolitan area population attenuated the segregation effects, suggesting a mediating or confounding role.
Conclusions:
Land cover was associated with segregation within each racial/ethnic group, which may be explained partly by the concentration of racial/ethnic minorities into densely populated neighborhoods within larger, more segregated cities. In anticipation of greater frequency and duration of extreme heat events, climate change adaptation strategies, such as planting trees in urban areas, should explicitly incorporate an environmental justice framework that addresses racial/ethnic disparities in HRRLC.
Urban particulate air pollution is a serious health issue. Trees within cities can remove fine particles from the atmosphere and consequently improve air quality and human health. Tree effects on PM2.5 concentrations and human health are modeled for 10 U.S. cities. The total amount of PM2.5 removed annually by trees varied from 4.7 tonnes in Syracuse to 64.5 tonnes in Atlanta, with annual values varying from $1.1 million in Syracuse to $60.1 million in New York City. Most of these values were from the effects of reducing human mortality. Mortality reductions were typically around 1 person yr(-1) per city, but were as high as 7.6 people yr(-1) in New York City. Average annual percent air quality improvement ranged between 0.05% in San Francisco and 0.24% in Atlanta. Understanding the impact of urban trees on air quality can lead to improved urban forest management strategies to sustain human health in cities.
Kyoto is an old city blessed with beautiful natural and cultural landscapes. With the long history of the various events and
responses to them, Kyoto is expected to offer some insight into how to create a sustainable city with resilience relevant
to its historical inheritances and biodiversity. In this paper, we attempt to describe some concepts of developments and responses
that could mitigate the negative impact of urbanization on its biodiversity and ecosystem services. (1) Modern city planning
considering natural amenities as well as old Feng-shui geomancy theory could conserve the surrounding mountains. Down-zoning
and vistaed view preservation are examples. (2) Inside the city areas, the theory of island biogeography is applicable for
biodiversity planning, and the size of the isolated greenery is the most important factor for species richness of all taxonomic
groups. However, a single large patch is not always sufficient to conserve as many species as possible. Moreover, the heterogeneity
of the environment, which is formed by its design and management, plays an important role in species richness. Japanese gardens
and the created wildlife habitat park are good solutions for biodiversity. (3) The nature of rivers and wetland systems has
been severely degraded in the urbanization process. However, the excellent Katsura detached palace garden and Oguraike wetland
system, which were one-time national monuments with high biodiversity, suggest a smart adaptation to the increasing risk of
flooding by climate change: “Do you Kyoto”?
KeywordsKyoto–Sustainability–Low-carbon society–Biodiversity–Biodiversity-conscious city–Smart adaptation
Our understanding of the dynamics of urban ecosystems can be enhanced by examining the multidimensional social characteristics
of households. To this end, we investigated the relative significance of three social theories of household structure—population,
lifestyle behavior, and social stratification—to the distribution of vegetation cover in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Our ability
to assess the relative significance of these theories depended on fine-scale social and biophysical data. We distinguished
among vegetation in three areas hypothesized to be differentially linked to these social theories: riparian areas, private
lands, and public rights-of-way (PROWs). Using a multimodel inferential approach, we found that variation of vegetation cover
in riparian areas was not explained by any of the three theories and that lifestyle behavior was the best predictor of vegetation
cover on private lands. Surprisingly, lifestyle behavior was also the best predictor of vegetation cover in PROWs. The inclusion
of a quadratic term for housing age significantly improved the models. Based on these research results, we question the exclusive
use of income and education as the standard variables to explain variations in vegetation cover in urban ecological systems.
We further suggest that the management of urban vegetation can be improved by developing environmental marketing strategies
that address the underlying household motivations for and participation in local land management.
Poor mental health is a major issue worldwide and causality is complex. For diseases with multifactorial background synergistic effects of person- and place- factors can potentially be preventive. Nature is suggested as one such positive place-factor. In this cohort study we tested the effect of defined green qualities (Serene, Space, Wild, Culture, Lush) in the environment at baseline on mental health at follow-up. We also studied interaction effects on mental health of those place factors and varied person factors (financial stress, living conditions, and physical activity).
Data on person factors were extracted from a longitudinal (years 1999/2000 and 2005) population health survey (n = 24945). The participants were geocoded and linked to data on green qualities from landscape assessments, and stored in the Geographical Information System (GIS). Crude odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated, and multivariate logistic analyses were performed.
Mental health was not affected by access to the chosen green qualities, neither in terms of amount nor in terms of any specific quality. However, we found a reduced risk for poor mental health at follow-up among women, through a significant interaction effect between physical activity and access to the qualities Serene or Space. For men the tendencies were similar, though not significant. Regarding the other three green qualities, as well as amount of qualities, no statistically certain synergistic effects were found. Likewise, no significant synergies were detected between green qualities and the other person-factors. Only advanced exercise significantly reduced the risk for poor mental health among women, but not for men, compared to physical inactivity.
The results do not directly support the hypothesis of a preventive mental health effect by access to the green qualities. However, the additive effect of serene nature to physical activity contributed to better mental health at follow-up. This tendency was equal for both sexes, but statistically significant only for women.Objective landscape assessments may be important in detangling geographic determinants of health. This study stresses the importance of considering interaction effects when dealing with disorders of multifactorial background.
This paper is a review of research in Chicago that linked analyses of vegetation structure with forest functions and values. During 1991, the regions trees removed an estimated 5575 metric tons of air pollutants, providing air cleansing worth 9.2 million. Each year they sequester an estimated 315 800 metric tons of carbon. Increasing tree cover 10% or planting about three trees per building lot saves annual heating and cooling costs by an estimated 50 to 90 per dwelling unit because of increased shade, lower summertime air temperatures, and reduced neighborhood wind speeds once the trees mature. The net present value of the services trees provide is estimated as 402 per planted tree. The present value of long-term benefits is more than twice the present value of costs.
In this paper, we summarize findings from a series of interrelated studies that examine an urban greenway, the 150 mile Chicago River corridor in Chicago, USA, from multiple perspectives, stakeholder viewpoints, and methodological techniques. Six interdependent “human dimensions” of greenways are identified in the studies: cleanliness, naturalness, aesthetics, safety, access, and appropriateness of development. Together, these dimensions form a core set of concerns relating to how people perceive and use the greenway for recreation and related experiences. While these dimensions show good consistency across our studies and are supported by the literature in the field, the quantitative and qualitative methods used also uncovered a rich variation in how the dimensions are construed by different stakeholder groups and along different reaches of the corridor. Using local demonstration projects from along the corridor, we illustrate how principles inherent in each dimension can be applied to improve the success of greenways through design, management, or programming. We conclude by discussing the applicability of these dimensions and methods of study to understand other urban and non-urban greenways, and suggest how the findings from such studies can be used to inform greenways planning, policy, and management.
A modeling study using hourly meteorological and pollution concentration data from across the coterminous United States demonstrates that urban trees remove large amounts of air pollution that consequently improve urban air quality. Pollution removal (O3, PM10, NO2, SO2, CO) varied among cities with total annual air pollution removal by US urban trees estimated at 711,000 metric tons ($3.8 billion value). Pollution removal is only one of various ways that urban trees affect air quality. Integrated studies of tree effects on air pollution reveal that management of urban tree canopy cover could be a viable strategy to improve air quality and help meet clean air standards.
While urban disamenities and pollution sources have received considerable attention in environmental justice research, few studies have examined sociospatial inequities associated with the distribution of desirable land uses. In this paper we focus on addressing this limitation by investigating the environmental equity implications of street trees—an important publicly financed amenity that provides several direct and indirect benefits to urban residents. The specific objective was to determine if the spatial distribution of public right-of-way trees is equitable with respect to race and ethnicity, income, and housing tenure in the city of Tampa, Florida, USA. We seek to extend research on equity analysis of urban amenities through several methodological innovations, including: (a) accounting for the heterogeneity of urban land use; (b) utilizing high-resolution remote sensing techniques to quantify parcel-specific tree cover; and (c) using multivariate regression models that control for spatial dependence within the data. The results support the inequity hypothesis by indicating a significantly lower proportion of tree cover on public right-of-way in neighborhoods containing a higher proportion of African-Americans, low-income residents, and renters. These findings have important implications for local public investment and policy strategies.
Urban vegetation provides a suite of ecosystem services to urban residents, from regulating microclimate to supporting good physical health. As more and more people make cities their home, urban vegetation is becoming a key part of urban residents’ well-being. Urban green equity is a central aspect of the distribution of and governance over urban vegetation and its associated ecosystem services. While issues of equity in urban forestry are of clear importance in a just society, it is unclear how the concept should be defined and analyzed. To begin to address this gap, this dissertation 1) examines the theoretical dimensions of urban green equity from multiple perspectives, 2) explores how urban forestry practitioners understand and use the concept of urban green equity in three case-study cities in the United States (US), and 3) conducts a spatial analysis of distributional green equity across 10 urbanized areas in the US. The research found 1) that there are multiple, related dimensions of urban green equity centred around two principle dimensions: distribution of urban vegetation and recognition of stakeholders in urban vegetation decision making, 2) that urban forestry practitioners collectively have a nuanced and complex understanding of urban green equity and tend to focus on distributional equity in their definitions and use of the concept, and 3) that distributional green inequity exists across multiple urbanized areas in the US, education and income are the factors most strongly predictive of the spatial distribution of urban vegetation, and public parks tend to be more equitably distributed than mixed and woody vegetation in cities. It is my hope that these results, and the methodological and conceptual approaches and frameworks provided by this research will be used to advance the rigorous study of urban green equity and improve urban green equity in practice in cities around the world.
With the majority of the world’s human population now living in cities, urban forests provide an increasingly important range of ecosystem services, from improved air quality and climate change adaptation to better public health outcomes and increased tourism revenues. The importance of these ecosystem services in urban environments, and the central role that cities play in the lives of people around the world, have motivated various attempts to quantify the value of ecosystem services provided by urban forests. This paper reviews existing research in the fields of urban forestry, economics, sociology, and health on the value of urban ecosystem services, with a focus on cultural services, a category of ecosystem services that is of key importance to human well-being but that has suffered from a lack of empirical research. The review identified 38 studies that examined the value of mixed vegetation, 31 studies that examined the value of trees, and 43 studies that examined the value of green spaces. Psychological health is the most-studied ecosystem service category, with most research in this area focusing on the services of mixed vegetation. Social health, community economic development, and tourism are the least-studied, with most research in these areas focusing on mixed vegetation and trees. Multiple metrics were used to quantify the value of urban greenery within each ecosystem service category but only 11 metrics were assigned a monetary value. Gaps in the literature that present strong opportunities for future research include: the value of urban forests for improving social health, equitable access to ecosystem services, the impact of urban forests on community economic development, and economic valuation and green exposure metrics. We hope that this review stimulates future research in the areas highlighted and that municipalities consider including evaluations of a broad range of ecosystem services during land use planning and budgeting processes.
Estimates of air pollution removal by the urban forest have mostly been based on mean values of forest structure variables for an entire city. However, the urban forest is not uniformly distributed across a city because of biophysical and social factors. Consequently, air pollution removal function by urban vegetation should vary because of this spatial heterogeneity. This paper presents a different approach to evaluate how the spatial heterogeneity of the urban forest influences air pollution removal at the socioeconomic subregion scale. estimated using measured urban forest structure data from three socioeconomic subregions in Santiago, Chile. Dry deposition was estimated using hourly climate, mixing height, and pollutant concentration data. Pollution removal rates among the three socioeconomic subregions were different because of heterogeneous urban forest structure and pollution concentrations. Air pollution removal per square meter of tree cover was greatest in the low socioeconomic subregion. Pollution removal during 1997–1998 was different from 2000 to 2001 due to pollution concentration differences. Seasonal air quality improvement also differed among the subregions. Results can be used to design management alternatives at finer administrative scales such as districts and neighborhoods that maximize the pollution removal rates by the urban forest in a subregion. Policies that affect the functionality of urban forest structure must consider spatial heterogeneity and scale when making region-wide recommendations. Similarly, when model-ing the functionality of the urban forest, models must capture this spatial heterogeneity for inter-city comparisons.
In the framework of a recent EU funded research project (EUROSEISRISK Seismic hazard assessment, site effects s soil-structure interaction studies in an instrumented basin), a bridge pier model was constructed, instrumented and tested in the EUROSEISTEST experimental site (http://euroseis.civil.auth.gr), located close to Thessaloniki in Greece. The prior aim is the experimental investigation of the dynamic characteristics of the model, the study of the soil-structure-interaction effects, and in particular the wave fields emanating from the oscillating structure to the surrounding ground; to accomplish this task a well-designed set of free-vibration tests were conducted. Experimental results were compared with careful 3D numerical simulations of the soil-foundation structure system, in the frequency and time domain. Several fundamental aspects of SSI are discussed and the available analytical impedance expressions are compared with the experimental and numerical results of the present study. The study of the dynamic behavior of a simple SDOF system consisting of a model bridge pier with surface foundation in real soft soil conditions and the numerical FE modeling of the experiments, enable us to enhance our knowledge on various soil-structure interaction aspects.
This study was conducted to determine whether or not trees contribute to residential property value and the ex-tent of that contribution in the areas observed. To accomplish this, homes were observed with a substantial amount of mature tree cover and homes were observed without tree cover. It is realized that there are other variables that con-tribute to residential property value and this information was obtained from tax cards on file in the town tax assessor's of-fice. All possible variables were noted for each house ob-served including the sale price. Factor and multiple regression analysis was used to determine the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable which is sales price of the house. The results showed that trees do contribute to property value in the areas observed. By using the equation formulated by the regression analysis, we can predict the value of homes. From the values derived by the regression analysis, it was found that good tree cover added $2,686 (or six percent of the total) to the property value of the homes observed. Individuals in the field of tree evaluation can easily arrive at and agree upon the value of a tree as it relates to timber use and aesthetic shade value. Formulas have been developed for calcu-lating such values (1). The U.S. Forest Service in a study conducted in Amherst, Massachusetts, showed that trees con-tribute seven percent to the value of the average property and as much as 15 percent to some lots (3). In this study, an effort has been made to measure the value of residential trees by incor-porating tree cover as one of many variables that contribute to residential property value and by comparing property values of residences with and without tree cover. Market analysis and property value can be used in determining the value of trees. "Trees in residential areas are usually valued and may serve in a considerable array of benefits. It will take much research to identify, sort out, and measure the components involved. To a degree, however, they are synthesized in prices people pay for housing" (4). Other studies have indicated that firm values are difficult to obtain and suggest that assigning a value to intangibles and amenities such as tree cover may not dictate whether a property with trees sells faster than a property without (2). This study is directed to help narrow some of these discrepancies by developing a methodology which can provide some insight to the problem of tree cover as a contributing factor in residential property value.
This study investigated the psychological (perceived restorativeness, subjective vitality, mood, creativity) and physiological (salivary cortisol concentration) effects of short-term visits to urban nature environments. Seventy-seven participants visited three different types of urban areas; a built-up city centre (as a control environment), an urban park, and urban woodland located in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Our results show that the large urban park and extensively managed urban woodland had almost the same positive influence, but the overall perceived restorativeness was higher in the woodland after the experiment. The findings suggest that even short-term visits to nature areas have positive effects on perceived stress relief compared to built-up environment. The salivary cortisol level decreased in a similar fashion in all three urban environments during the experiment. The relations between psychological measures and physiological measures, as well as the influence of nature exposure on different groups of people, need to be studied further.
Urban businesses, much like residential places, vary widely in their landscaping practices. Large mowed areas are widespread; native vegetation is far less common. The latter has numerous environmental benefits, but its wilder, rougher texture has not been as widely accepted. Very little of the research on naturalistic vegetation has been carried out in the context of workplaces or addressing the reactions of the employees. This study is a step in this direction. Using a survey and photo-questionnaire, employees along a major business corridor were asked about their nearby natural setting, satisfactions, preferences, and desired changed to the landscape. With respect to ground texture the findings show that the more prairie-like, less groomed areas can be very effective. A few large trees can make a substantial difference, and in denser vegetation a suggestion of a path enhanced satisfaction. The treatment of parking lots poses particular challenges, but these too can be landscaped with native vegetation to great advantage. Comparison of the preference ratings by the employee sample and a much larger general sample showed striking parallels. Preference for nature settings, especially of a walkable scale, are far greater than for places with major buildings or parking areas. Nonetheless, the study offers encouragement for the use of ecologically sounder practices as part of the nearby natural environment.
The Million Trees LA initiative intends to improve Los Angeles's environment through planting and stewardship of 1 million trees. The purpose of this study was to measure Los Angeles's existing tree canopy cover (TCC), determine if space exists for 1 million additional trees, and estimate future benefits from the planting. High-resolution QuickBird remote sensing data, aerial photographs, and geographic information systems were used to classify land cover types, measure TCC, and identify potential tree planting sites. Benefits were forecast for planting of 1 million trees between 2006 and 2010, and their growth and mortality were projected until 2040. Two scenarios reflected low (17%) and high (56%) mortality rates. Numerical models were used with geographic data and tree size information for coastal and inland climate zones to calculate annual benefits and their monetary value. Los Angeles's existing TCC was 21%, and ranged from 7 to 37% by council district. There was potential to add 2.5 million additional trees to the existing population of approximately 10.8 million, but only 1.3 million of the potential tree sites are deemed realistic to plant. Benefits for the 1-million-tree planting for the 35-year period were $1.33 billion and $1.95 billion for the high- and low-mortality scenarios, respectively. Average annual benefits were $38 and $56 per tree planted. Eighty-one percent of total benefits were aesthetic/other, 8% were stormwater runoff reduction, 6% energy savings, 4% air quality improvement, and less than 1% atmospheric carbon reduction.
All the usual methods for valuing non-market benefits and costs may be applied to the aesthetic values of urban trees. However, evaluation has most usually been undertaken by one of two apparently dissimilar methods. The expert approach uses a mixture of measurement and judgement. Different versions of the approach have different quantitative input, produce divergent results, and theoretical justifications of their cash value are lacking. The hedonic approach attempts to derive cash values from house prices. Here too problems of quantification arise, in choice of appropriate variables, in the form of relationships and in interaction of variables. An approach using the human eye's ability to synthesise disparate variables may overcome these problems, but there remain problems of collinearity between environmental and demographic variables. At least explicit recognition of judgement in the process allows open discussion of these problems.
Box plots display batches of data. Five values from a set of data are conventionally used; the extremes, the upper and lower hinges (quartiles), and the median. Such plots are becoming a widely used tool in exploratory data analysis and in preparing visual summaries for statisticians and nonstatisticians alike. Three variants of the basic display, devised by the authors, are described. The first visually incorporates a measure of group size; the second incorporates an indication of rough significance of differences between medians; the third combines the features of the first two. These techniques are displayed by examples.
This research examines the social-spatial dynamics of human–environment interactions in Evansville, Indiana, USA as well as the surrounding Vanderburgh County. Employing geographically weighted regression, this paper models the observed relationship between the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and key sociodemographic parameters (housing value, median household income, percent of residents in poverty, population density and percent of population white). Further, this paper demonstrates that geographically weighted regression utilized within a GISci framework can be effectively used to visualize urban human–environment interactions and that the spatial distribution of environmental resources co-varies with socioeconomic conditions. Finally, the paper demonstrates that greenness indicators derived from remote sensing data can be used as proxy measures for observed sociodemographic variables.
The notion that parks have a positive impact on proximate property values was recognized in the debates surrounding the pioneering of large urban parks in England in the first half of the nineteenth century, and subsequently in the spread of this movement to the US in the latter half of that century. The empirical basis for these early assertions was rudimentary and naïve. This paper reviews contemporary research using the more advanced analytical procedures now available to social scientists that has examined this issue. The findings confirm the initial rationale and suggest that a positive impact of 20% on property values abutting or fronting a passive park is a reasonable starting point guideline for estimating such a park's impact.
Research has recently argued, quite successfully, for a more dialectic appreciation of urban nature/society relations. Despite this progress, there is still the need to recognize that the social production of urban environments explicitly leads to uneven urban environments and environmental injustice. Environmental inequalities clearly exist within cities; when taking into account how environmental externalities play out at different scales, the degree to which something is unjust becomes less clear. This paper discusses how the scales at which socially produced urban forest externalities play out pose difficulties for considering environmental injustice. This issue, while interesting from the point of view of considering scalar nature/social dialects, also makes policy considerations for urban reforestation problematic as a result of the ways in which urban forests contribute to local/global ecological scenarios.
The distribution of public green space within towns is frequently uneven, and influenced by attributes such as its location relative to the commercial core, as well as the ethnicity and relative wealth and education of the residents. Yet most studies are from large cities in developed countries. In contrast, this study reports on the distribution of public green space across 9 small towns in a developing country, namely South Africa, which offers a unique case study because of its former racially defined settlement patterns. We do so using GIS analysis of aerial photographs focusing on 3 types of suburbs in each town, defined on the basis of wealth as well as race-based history under the previous apartheid regime. The more affluent suburbs, inhabited mainly by whites, have the lowest density of housing and the highest area of green space per capita. Proportionally, they have a similar area under public green space as to the previously racially defined townships, but because of the lower housing density, they have a greater area per person. The newly built low-cost housing areas (termed RDP suburbs), occupied largely by poor black South Africans, are poorly endowed with public green space, and fare worse than the other 2 suburb types on all attributes measured. This needs to be addressed in further low-cost housing developments.
The extent to which urban tree cover influences crime is in debate in the literature. This research took advantage of geocoded crime point data and high resolution tree canopy data to address this question in Baltimore City and County, MD, an area that includes a significant urban–rural gradient. Using ordinary least squares and spatially adjusted regression and controlling for numerous potential confounders, we found that there is a strong inverse relationship between tree canopy and our index of robbery, burglary, theft and shooting. The more conservative spatially adjusted model indicated that a 10% increase in tree canopy was associated with a roughly 12% decrease in crime. When we broke down tree cover by public and private ownership for the spatial model, we found that the inverse relationship continued in both contexts, but the magnitude was 40% greater for public than for private lands. We also used geographically weighted regression to identify spatial non-stationarity in this relationship, which we found for trees in general and trees on private land, but not for trees on public land. Geographic plots of pseudo-t statistics indicated that while there was a negative relationship between crime and trees in the vast majority of block groups of the study area, there were a few patches where the opposite relationship was true, particularly in a part of Baltimore City where there is an extensive interface between industrial and residential properties. It is possible that in this area a significant proportion of trees is growing in abandoned lands between these two land uses.
City trees, and the ecosystems of which they are a part, provide important benefits to urban residents. In many cities across North America, suitable locations for the planting of trees – expansion of the urban forest – are mostly confined to privately owned land. Our primary motivation for conducting this study was to investigate whether aggregate socio-demographic characteristics, represented geographically by census tract, have explanatory value concerning participation in a large urban forestation program. Specifically, we used 2006 Statistics Canada census data and known geographic locations of participants in a privately administered urban forestation program to conduct a two-stage multiple regression analysis for East York, Etobicoke, Markham, North York, Scarborough, Toronto, and York (all densely populated centres within the Greater Toronto Area of southern Ontario, Canada). A priori assumptions about program participants were evaluated first based on a review of the literature and through solicitation of expert opinion. The second step employed an exploratory data analysis approach to identify variables that may have differed from a priori assumptions. Results indicate that there are marked regional differences in both the a priori assumptions, as well as in the variables identified through the exploratory regression analysis. The explanatory ability of the baseline regression model is strongest for East York and weakest for Markham, whereas the ability to explain program participation using the exploratory regression model is strongest for Markham and weakest for North York. While participation of Toronto and York residents is largely explained by a dwelling-specific variable (the number of homes constructed pre-1946), the participation of Markham residents is typified by a gender-specific income variable (the number of females reporting a gross income range of $50 to <$60k). Beyond provision of location-specific client information, our study presents a methodological framework that is of value to the refinement of current forestation efforts and to future target marketing of similar initiatives.
A field survey assessed the restorative effects of visiting an urban forest and a city park in Zurich, Switzerland. Respondents rated their headaches, level of stress, and how balanced they felt both prior to visiting the outdoor location and at the time of being interviewed. Suffering from headaches and stress decreased significantly, and feeling well-balanced increased significantly. The recovery ratio for stress was 87%, and the reduction in headaches was 52%, in terms of the possible improvements on five-point rating scales. With respect to feeling well-balanced, the observed changes amounted to 40% of the possible enhancement. Positive effects increased with length of visit, and individuals practising sports (e.g., jogging, biking, playing ball) showed significantly higher improvements than those engaged in less strenuous activities (e.g., taking a walk or relaxing). These findings support previous research on how exercise in green spaces promotes well-being and recovery from stress.
This article identifies social justice dilemmas associated with the necessity to adapt to climate change, examines how they are currently addressed by the climate change regime, and proposes solutions to overcome prevailing gaps and ambiguities. We argue that the key justice dilemmas of adaptation include responsibility for climate change impacts, the level and burden sharing of assistance to vulnerable countries for adaptation, distribution of assistance between recipient countries and adaptation measures, and fair participation in planning and making decisions on adaptation. We demonstrate how the climate change regime largely omits responsibility but makes a general commitment to assistance. However, the regime has so far failed to operationalise assistance and has made only minor progress towards eliminating obstacles for fair participation. We propose the adoption of four principles for fair adaptation in the climate change regime. These include avoiding dangerous climate change, forward-looking responsibility, putting the most vulnerable first and equal participation of all. We argue that a safe maximum standard of 400–500 ppm of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and a carbon tax of $20–50 per carbon equivalent ton could provide the initial instruments for operationalising the principles.
We estimated the effect of shade trees on the summertime electricity use of 460 single-family homes in Sacramento, California. Results show that trees on the west and south sides of a house reduce summertime electricity use, whereas trees on the north side of a house increase summertime electricity use. The current level of tree cover on the west and south sides of houses in our sample reduced summertime electricity use by 185 kWh (5.2%), whereas north-side trees increased electricity use by 55 kWh (1.5%). Results also show that a London plane tree, planted on the west side of a house, can reduce carbon emissions from summertime electricity use by an average of 31% over 100 years.
International efforts to preserve the natural environment are mainly concerned with large, bio-diverse and relatively untouched ecosystems or with individual animal or vegetal species, either endangered or threatened with extinction. Much less attention is being paid to that type of nature close to where people live and work, to small-scale green areas in cities and to their benefits to people. Increasing empirical evidence, however, indicates that the presence of natural areas contributes to the quality of life in many ways. Besides many environmental and ecological services, urban nature provides important social and psychological benefits to human societies, which enrich human life with meanings and emotions. The main concern of this paper is to address the importance of urban nature for citizens’ well being and for the sustainability of the city they inhabit. Some results of a survey conducted among visitors of an urban park in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) are presented and discussed. The issues investigated concern people’s motives for urban nature, the emotional dimension involved in the experience of nature and its importance for people’s general well being. Results confirm that the experience of nature in urban environment is source of positive feelings and beneficial services, which fulfill important immaterial and non-consumptive human needs. Implications for the sustainability of the city will be analyzed and discussed.
Green spaces play a crucial role in supporting urban ecological and social systems, a fact recognised in public policy commitments in both the UK and Europe. The amount of provision, the distribution of green space and the ease of access to such spaces are key contributors to social and ecological function in urban environments. We measured distance along the transport network to public green space available to households in Sheffield, and compared this with the distribution of private garden space. In addition, we used a geodemographic database, Mosaic UK, to examine how access to green space varies across different sectors of society. Public green spaces are chronically underprovided relative to recommended targets. For example, 64% of Sheffield households fail to meet the recommendation of the regulatory agency English Nature (EN), that people should live no further than 300 m from their nearest green space. Moreover, this figure rises to 72% if we restrict attention to municipal parks recognised by the local council. There is an overall reduction in coverage by green space when moving from neighbourhoods where green space is primarily publicly provided to those where it is privately provided. While access to public green space varies significantly across different social groups, those enjoying the greatest access include more deprived groups and older people. This study highlights the need for additional green space to be created and existing green space to be protected in light of increasing development pressure.
Several studies indicate that there is a positive relationship between green vegetation land cover and wealthy socio-economic conditions in urban areas. The purpose of this research is to test for and explore spatial variation in the relationship between socio-economic and green vegetation land cover across urban, suburban, and rural areas, using geographically weighted regression (GWR). The analysis was conducted at the census block group level for Massachusetts, using Census 2000 data and impervious surface data at 1-m resolution. To explore regional variations in the relationship, four scenarios were generated by regressing each of the following socio-economic variables – median household income, percentage of poverty, percentage of minority population, and median home value – against two environmental variables – percent of impervious surface and population density. GWR results show that there is a considerable spatial variation in the character and the strength of the relationship for each model. There are two main conclusions in this study. First, the impervious surface is generally a strong predictor of the level of wealth as measured by four variables included in the analysis, at the scale of census block group; however, the strength of the relationship varies geographically. Second, GWR, not ordinary least squares technique, should be used for regional scale spatial analysis because it is able to account for local effects and shows geographical variation in the strength of the relationship.