Space for equity: socioeconomic variations in the provision of public parks in Hermosillo, Mexico

Abstract

This article examines the intersection between globalisation and allocation of open public space by testing the spatial equity hypothesis in Hermosillo, Mexico, a regional city impacted directly by global processes. Availability and accessibility of public parks were examined using a geographic information system and neighbourhoods were stratified into quintiles based on socioeconomic status. Overall, the analysis shows that the amount of public park space in Hermosillo is substandard and its distribution reveals a pattern of spatial inequity affecting primarily residents of poor neighbourhoods. We argue that as the economy of the city grows increasingly integrated into global circuits, the global-to-local connection materialises in an unequal competition between globalised spaces and local public space. This, in turn, leads to further relegation of neighbourhoods that are already on the margins of urban equity regarding access to public parks. This study extends prior research conducted in developed countries to a city in a developing nation and fills a vacuum of information that potentially can contribute to a more equitable development in Hermosillo.

Access to Urban Green Space in Cities of the Global South: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Contrasting results also emerged for Shanghai, with more studies finding inequity for green space proximity [81,82,91,98] than equity [99]. Three studies in Latin American cities (Santiago de Chile; Hermosillo, Mexico; Bogotá, Colombia) [18,38,80], and three other studies in African cities (Cairo, Egypt; Cape Town, South Africa) [21,86,96] found that high-SES people live closer to parks than low-SES people.…”

“…Studies in other Asian cities such as Sheikhupura, Pakistan [69], Tehran, Iran [71,84], and Hamadan, Iran [46] also found inequitable results for green space quantity. All sampled articles that measured quantity in Latin America [18,20,72,73] and Africa [21,77,85,89,96] discovered inequities. Effect sizes for inequities were particularly large in some studies that measured green space area per capita [21,73,85].…”

“…As part of growing concerns about inequalities in urban areas of the Global South, in the last decade, an increasing number of studies have analyzed whether urban green spaces are equitably distributed in cities of developing countries [12,[18][19][20][21]. Much of this research has also been motivated by the documented benefits of urban green space.…”

How can the spatial equity of health services be defined and measured? A systematic review of spatial equity definitions and methods

“…Reported definitions of spatial equity were classified into one of the four themes identified in the ‘Methods’ section (Online Supplemental Material). Overall, the themes appear mutually exclusive, with only Lara-Valencia and García-Pérez 26 referring to both distributional fairness (Theme 1) and causes of spatial inequity (Theme 3).…”

“…Five studies referred to spatial equity as the fairness of the distribution of both benefits and burdens. 20,22,26–28 Five further studies suggested that resource distributions and access should be fair. 23,24,29–31 One study was set in the context of environmental health, referring to spatial equity as a the fair distribution of hazards.…”