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Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
1
70 Ensuring equitable green space to deprived social groups
Alexis Vásquez and Cynnamon Dobbs
Introduction
Urban greenspaces provide a range of ecosystem services for the inhabitants of cities. They are
spaces for enjoyment, relaxation, exercising, and connecting with nature in ways that reduce
urban health problems (Fuller and Gaston 2009; Wolch et al. 2014), so making cities more
livable while providing space for nature to co-exist with humans. These greenspaces refer to
parks, plazas, green corridors, community gardens, backyards, communal gardens, sport fields
and riparian areas (Roy et al. 2012). They may be of private or public domain, vary in size,
vegetation structure, water features, infrastructure, and therefore in the services provided.
Vegetation in greenspaces is capable of reducing temperatures, capturing air pollutants, storing
carbon and also be habitat for biodiversity (Dobbs et al. 2011). Water bodies in greenspaces and
riparian areas can also ameliorate high temperatures, reduce storm-water runoff and pollutants,
and also be habitat for the associated fauna (Groffman et al. 2003). Given all these benefits it is
important to ensure that access is available to all the socio-cultural groups and the multiplicity of
users living in the city.
Frequently, the inequitable distribution of greenspaces across municipalities, cities or
metropolitan areas, contributes to environmental inequality. These environmental inequalities are
usually associated with social inequalities derived from income, ethnicities, disabilities, gender
and other cultural and social differences (Heynen et al. 2006, Byrne et al. 2009 and see Chapter
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
2
82). We will refer to communities with environmental inequities as deprived communities.
Environmental equality includes the distributive justice, i.e. the distribution of environmental
quality across the space, and the procedural justice, i.e. the access of citizens to the
environmental planning processes (Holifield 2010) and recognition, i.e. needs and identity of
social groups.
This chapter initially summarizes the issue of environmental inequalities related to greenspaces
and explores possible solutions for dealing with the complexities and dynamics of urban areas to
reduce greenspaces inequalities. Both inequalities related directly to greenspaces and those
impacting on health, community building, natural hazards and delinquency are considered. It is
critical to recognize that this is a long-term commitment of multiple actors to address a better
distribution of the quantity and quality of greenspaces, while avoiding negative effects such as
gentrification. This is a shared responsibility among the government, the private sector and the
citizens by promoting adaptive governance that includes community participation and involves
minorities, to improve living conditions and well-being.
Inequalities in urban green space provision
Concerns regarding environmental inequalities have focused on the socially unequal distribution
of environmental problems derived from water, air and soil pollution. It is only recently that the
unequal access to environmental amenities, such as greenspaces, by different social groups has
gained attention. Inequalities occur when minority communities have restricted access or lack of
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
3
urban greenspaces. Those inequalities are usually identified with socio-economic conditions, but
other possible disadvantages, such as ethnics, age and gender should be considered.
The reasons for the differentiated distribution of urban greenspaces can range from historical
land development, evolving ideas about leisure and recreation and history of class and ethno-
racial inequality and state oppression (Byrne 2012). Often these explanations are intertwined and
mutually reinforcing (Wolch et al. 2014). The people living in geographically remote,
economically marginal areas are often politically powerless and lack the ability or will to
influence or resist decisions affecting their living environment (Kruize et al. 2014). Some studies
have demonstrated that the funding for greenspaces follows a socio-economic and ethnic
gradient, where deprived communities tend to have fewer greenspaces, not only from public
resources but also from non-profit ones (Dahman et al. 2010).
According to the environmental justice framework there are three main dimensions that must be
explored to fully understand and address urban green space inequalities: geographical
distribution (distributive justice), recognition and participation (procedural justice). We detail
these ideas in the following section.
Distributive equality addresses the unequal allocation and access among different social group to
greenspaces and its associated benefits. Studies concerning distributive inequality showed that
neighborhoods that are more socially deprived tend to have less available green space, of smaller
size, low in biodiversity and worst in infrastructure. Inequalities appear not only in terms of
lesser amounts in geographic distribution but also in spaces of lower quality (Rigolon 2016).
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
4
Therefore, those greenspaces provide less ecosystem services, are perceived more as a burden,
tend to be clusters of delinquency, garbage and recognize as unsecure. Most inequalities of urban
green space occur in low-income areas, and in some cities, this is also where minorities live.
Studies from North America have shown a strong correlation between access to green areas and
socio-economic status. Tooke et al. (2009) found for Canadian cities that the vegetated area was
related to their socioeconomic condition. Heynen et al. (2006) found that besides socio-economic
status ethnicity plays an important role in the uneven distribution of greenspaces in Milwaukee
(US). More recently Shanahan et al (2014) explored access to public and private greenspaces in
Brisbane (Australia), and found that tree cover, in general, was high in more affluent
neighborhoods and also that the quality of those spaces decreases within a socio-economic
gradient. In the Latin-American context similar patterns occur. Wright-Wendel et al (2012)
found disparities in the distribution of greenspaces in Santa Cruz, Bolivia between socio-
economic groups. In addition, the inequalities in greenspaces occur in their design and associated
amenities. Crawford et al (2008) found that amenities such as drinking fountains, picnic tables,
trees, water features, paths, lighting and signage were better in high socio-economic
neighborhoods. All these features would be likely to encourage exercise with a direct impact on
peoples’ health (Crawford et al. 2008).
Although distribution is the common concern of urban environmental justice, recognition and
participation issues have recently been incorporated as key dimensions of analysis (Schlosberg
2007). Given its recent relevance, there is little information on such topics in environmental
justice research, particularly when addressing urban greenspaces (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016;
Vásquez et al. 2018). In such works, for example in the design and implementation of
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
5
greenspaces, the minorities rights, identity and interests have to be recognized and addressed in a
respectful and equitable manner. For example, the rights of homeless people that live in certain
greenspaces (Dooling 2009) are commonly neglected and the people’s needs are frequently
ignored. Similarly, this happens with Latino or African American ethnic groups that used parks
in ways that differ from white people, causing conflicts and discrimination (Gobster 2002).
Participation or procedural justice is the third dimension that we recognize. It concerns how a
good distribution of greenspaces and an adequate recognition of minority groups may be ensured
through appropriate social and institutional processes (Schlosberg 2007). In these cases,
participation mechanisms become relevant together with the role of the government participatory
tools to ensure equitable access to greenspaces by different social groups. In many cases the
initiatives to conserve and develop greenspaces and plans for urban regeneration and
infrastructure are produced by the government using a top-down approach with limited
mechanisms for community participation (Ambrose-Oji et al. 2017). As a response to this
community movements emerge demanding a stronger participation on the decisions that affect
the greenspaces at the neighborhood scale.
Neighborhoods where the most vulnerable communities live are affected by a complex network
of structural social inequalities that overload them with problems and/or disadvantages related to
income, housing quality, physical and psychological health, together with social pathologies such
as delinquency and drug addiction. In addition they face environmental inequalities, such as
access to greenspaces, which are often overlooked. Any intervention to diminish the inequality
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
6
of greenspace accessibility and use should understand cumulative impacts and the context in
which the communities are situated.
Encouraging equitable access to greenspaces
To mitigate urban environmental injustice issues an equitable distribution and quality of
greenspaces must be ensured within accessible distance from their homes. How do we determine
how much, where, how big, how accessible, how close, how multifunctional and the design a
green space should have to reduce environmental inequalities (Byrne 2012)? What process and
decision making is needed to achieve these objectives? In this section we highlight key ways to
deal with the complexities and dynamics of urban areas to reduce greenspace inequalities.
Development of standards for ensuring equality
Ensuring equality requires that the standards are mandatory, clear, and focus on qualitative and
quantitative features of greenspaces that can satisfy the needs for multiple user groups from
deprived communities. These standards should be primarily to address green space equality
issues and should be considered within the design and monitoring of the public policy. An
example of an indicator that addresses inequality is the Gini Index, a measure of statistical
dispersion intended to represent the income or wealth distribution of a nation's residents (Cornia
and Court, 2001) which can help in measuring urban green space distribution problems.
A more comprehensive quantitative indicator should not only include the quantity of greenspaces
in a spatial (or administrative) unit but should also address their distribution and accessibility
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
7
(Morgan Hughey et al. 2015). This could be done by complementing walkability indicators with
landscape ecology metrics. From a qualitative approach it is necessary to first understand the
usability of greenspaces by multiple users. These should focus on minority needs and interests,
age, socio-economic and cultural differences, mainly because cities are becoming more
globalized and their residents more ethno-culturally heterogeneous. To do this successfully it
would be advisable to determine collective park standards through a democratic process,
involving both national recommendations and local expertise (Chieh-Lu et al. 2008). Indicators
should be useful at multiple scales and levels of detail, from individual sub-divisions to
municipalities, whole cities and metropolitan regions.
It is important that those standards are achievable and not unrealistic. For example, the park
standard that no resident should be further than 400 meters away from a park in reality is very
difficult to achieve in cities that are dense (Byrne 2012). At the present park standards include a
size standard (area>1 ha), a ratio standard (m2 per habitant), and a distance standard (within x
meters from a residence). These types of standards have been adopted as minimum requirements
and are quite rigid. They do not account for the local context and ignore citizen preferences and
do not address differential uses at different times of the day (Byrne 2012). Furthermore, these
standards do not encourage spatial and functional heterogeneity and are insensitive to urban
dynamics and tend to result in designs that do not account for a variety of facilities and
management (Byrne 2012).
One of the proposed standards is to develop a needs-based approach, according to the population
needs, accounting for the variety of socio-demographics, leisure and recreation preferences of
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
8
present and future residents (Byrne 2012, Tan 2011). It has also been demonstrated that there are
environment-behavior relationships where the characteristics of park features such as benches,
path, stairs, determine which activities and the time spent allowing the assessment of the capacity
to fulfill user needs (Golicnik et al. 2010).
Participation and governance
Promoting the participation of a variety of stakeholders from the public, private and civil society
leads to the protection, planning and management of greenspaces in more vulnerable areas and
can result in more innovative and successful ways to address inequality.
There are several arrangements of actors and levels of participation for the creation and
management of urban greenspaces, ranging from self-governance or self-organized where the
community are the leaders (see section on community initiatives), to cases of top-down planning
lead by government or NGO’s that are derived from greater community consultation (Van der
Jagt et al. 2016).
There is even evidence that a wider participation in the design and management of greenspaces
improves the results of these interventions. However, assumptions should be carefully examined
when dealing with ethnic minorities or more socially deprived groups. Special attention should
be paid to these groups in the participatory processes, given that it is often necessary to identify
and provide them with the appropriate knowledge and skills for a proper inclusion in these
processes (Rutt & Gulsrud 2016). This becomes especially relevant since organized and non-
organized communities belonging to more affluent and well-educated groups tend to lead
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
9
decision-making processes. They are better informed and well prepared and have better social
and political networks than more deprived groups. Therefore, there is a need to pay special
attention to the participatory process to avoid reproducing, maintaining or increasing the
inequalities in the provision and quality of urban greenspaces.
Another risk in community participatory initiatives is the proper management of greenspaces in
more deprived neighborhoods, ensuring that there is the knowledge and capacity available to
maintain and improve the quality of those (Van der Jagt et al. 2016). This means that self-
governance initiatives and the co-management of these neighborhoods should be monitored and
guided with the objective of ensuring a positive impact on those greenspaces. This will also help
to remove possible obstacles and unwanted effects that appear during the management process.
Lack of participation by private actors in initiatives greenspaces has been identified in the
literature and needs to change (Ambrose-Oji et al. 2017). This becomes especially relevant in
more deprived neighborhoods, given that they are often surrounded by industries and private
companies. In several cases, these sources are responsible for high pollution levels and negative
environmental conditions in the adjacent community. An opportunity arises to involve these
private actors in the improvement of livability of these neighborhoods through the creation and
maintenance of greenspaces as a form of compensation or social responsibility. These schemes
could be mandatory and should be established by the environmental and urban authorities.
In these cases the role of the government becomes particularly important for facilitating
governance arrangements that are diverse and functional to improve the provision of greenspaces
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
10
in deprived neighborhoods. This could be done through the support of community initiatives,
promoting public-private agreements and developing instruments that enable more involvement
of the private sector.
Urban planning instruments
Several existing alternatives to encourage the reduction of environmental inequalities and
mechanisms for conservation could be applied to increase and enhance the quality, quantity and
distribution of greenspaces. Instruments such as green funds, subsidies, tax reductions, enterprise
social responsibility, compensation schemes all favor the investment in areas deprived of
greenspaces by including their creation, maintenance, and restoration.
The development of special institutions and laws should be promoted to avoid and regulate
environmental inequalities, such as the ones from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
(U.S) (EPA, 2002). It is important that public policies, plans and projects are assessed to avoid
negative and cumulative impacts to minority groups and to ensure their contribution to
greenspaces access by these communities. When instruments and public or private interventions
are not evaluated, as previously mentioned, there is a high risk for them to generate or contribute
to urban inequalities. Anguelovski et al. (2016) distinguished that land use planning for climate
adaptation can intensify inequalities through acts of commission. As several of these adaptation
plans include greenspaces, the acts of commission refer to when deprived communities are
displaced to areas far from rivers, wetlands, and forests and are obliged to relocate in green space
deficient areas. In contrast, more affluent communities remain around these green areas or are
even encouraged to move to these areas, a case in point being the Metropolitan Green Belt in
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
11
Medellin, Colombia (Anguelovski et al. 2016). It is also relevant to include, in an explicit
manner, objectives that aim to mitigate inequalities in access to urban greenspaces in city
planning and decision-making. Actions to reduce inequalities should lead implementation by
inclusion in specific plans such as urban tree or green space master plans and in more general
plans such as urban regeneration which commonly affects more deprived neighborhoods.
Plans for dense neighborhoods of sprawling cities, with little space to create new large green
areas, need to incorporate innovative approaches. Such approaches should take advantage of
underutilized areas such as roofs, walls, street sites and other residual spaces associated with
highways, tree lines and other infrastructure (Jim 2013, Vásquez el at. 2016). In contrast,
deprived neighborhoods in shrinking cities that are losing population tend to have much vacant
land for the development of greenspaces. Such patches are commonly used for urban agriculture,
responding to the interest and needs of those communities (Haaland & Van den Bosch 2015).
The design and implementation of the adequate instruments should involve processes that ensure
participation. Effective participation should include mechanisms that ensure that green space
interventions are culturally appropriate and incorporate minority groups’ needs and interests as
equal to efforts given to other social groups. There is a growing interest in addressing procedural
justice using digital tools to facilitate community dialogue for green space planning and
management (Rutt & Gulsrud 2016). The instruments should be flexible enough to allow an
adaptive implementation because this approach is the most adequate for dealing with deprived
neighborhoods. Long-term consequences of the improvement of green space availability and
accessibility should be considered, given that this often leads to green gentrification. This is the
process in which the quantity and quality of greenspaces improves the attractiveness of a
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
12
neighborhood and public health, leading to the displacement of low income groups (Wolch et al.
2014).
Community initiatives
These initiatives are developed in an autonomous way to face local issues related to the low
availability and quality of greenspaces. They use a variety of innovative actions to address
problems such as management of deteriorated greenspaces, use of remnant spaces, and defense
of threatened greenspaces. These actions mobilize community will, and sometimes also the will
of public institutions by putting their demands on the public agenda. There are cases in which
community social movements resist private investments or projects proposed by the government
that threaten the livability of these neighborhoods, particularly in relation to the availability of
greenspaces (Anguelovski 2013). Social movements towards greenspaces can become important
not only for the local community but can also spread to the wider community worried about
environmental issues (Biskupovic and Stamm 2016).
Community initiatives from deprived neighborhoods to improve greenspaces have an important
role in developing areas according to local people’s preferences (i.e. type of recreational
facilities or urban agriculture). These initiatives offer opportunities for community building and
development and reinforcement of local identity, social cohesion, and self-awareness.
Communities involved in the development and maintenance of greenspaces can produce high
levels of ecosystem service provision in small green areas through highly committed volunteers
(Dennis and James, 2016), through a process known as place keeping. Mattijssen et al. (2017)
discusses how long-term success of urban green space initiatives depends on three main factors:
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
13
the degree of formalization given by the rules and procedures that deliver stability to the
participants; the capacity of the group to adapt to the political, economic, and cultural changes;
and the support from the authorities. This last aspect is key for the persistence and impact of
community initiatives for several reasons. The government has to play an important role in
recognizing and legitimizing community initiatives, assisting with group organizational matters,
technical support for project development and financial schemes that allow the persistence of
those initiatives (Mattijssen et al. 2017, Ambrose-Oji et al. 2017, Haaland and Van den Bosch
2015). Given that in many cities the government owns the majority of the urban land, its role in
the provision of spaces for the development of community initiatives becomes extremely
relevant. Community groups, by themselves or supported by the government, should build
collaborative networks or umbrella organizations in order to have more relevance in decision
making for the protection and monitoring of urban greenspaces (Ernstson et al. 2008, Barthel et
al. 2015). This allows the functional specialization of the community groups with regard to
campaigning, practical skills or attraction of resources (Ernstson et al. 2008).
Final remarks
Deprived communities tend to have fewer greenspaces and at the same time bear a
disproportionate burden of environmental and social issues, such as pollution, health problems,
limited work opportunities, more delinquency and deteriorating living conditions. Communities
affected by different levels of environmental injustice with a multiplicity of intertwined social,
economic and environmental problems present scenarios of high uncertainty and complexity.
Any initiatives to improve the access of deprived communities to greenspaces should adequately
consider these interconnections, from the existing problems that may be obstacles to their
Vásquez, A. & Dobbs, C. Ensuring equitable green space to different social economic groups. Accepted.
In: Anderson, P., Douglas, I., Goode, D., Houck, M., Maddox, D., Nagendra, H. & Puay Yok T. (Eds.), The
Routledge Handbook of Urban Ecology, second edition. Routledge.
14
success to opportunities offered for greenspaces to alleviate other issues related to food,
recreation, community building, physical and psychological health, and employment
opportunities.
The environmental justice lens provides a broader approach to deal with the inequality of urban
greenspaces that goes beyond distributive issues such acreage, access and quality. This approach
calls for including less explored dimensions derived from more social and political veins such as
recognition and participation. Any intervention to create and manage urban greenspaces in poor
or minority communities needs to recognize properly their identity and needs and ensure their
effective participation in the decision-making process. The solutions can come from urban
planning instruments that explicitly include objectives of equality, formal environmental justice
assessments, development of governance systems that are participatory and the strengthening of
social movements and community initiatives that search for green in deprived communities.
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ID 27 Aug 18
