Who has access to urban vegetation? A spatial analysis of distributional green equity in 10 US cities

Nesbitt, Lorien; Meitner, Michael J.; Girling, Cynthia; Sheppard, Stephen R.J.; Lu, Yuhao

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.08.007

Cited by 370 publications

(212 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Usually, high-income residents tend to live in the neighborhoods with private gardens within the gated communities provided by estate developers and enjoy better greening environment as well as corresponding benefits. This paper confirms that there is widespread evidence of green inequity, supporting theories of environmental justice and political ecology that suggest that environmental amenities are inequitably distributed across different social groups (9,17). Neighborhoods with education above high school and more proportion of children and elder people are often associated with increased access to parks.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…This finding also highlights that the ecosystem services provided by urban vegetation are more equitably distributed, with recreational benefits provided by public parks being differentially distributed. This finding is in contrast to the empirical evidence on 10 U.S. cities that parks are more equitably distributed and that the increased inequity observed in the mixed and woody vegetation may be due to vegetation located on private land or streets (9). However, in the background of the socialist marketization with Chinese characteristics, urban green spaces as a public product are mainly planned and managed by the local government, which prefers to plant more trees instead of constructing parks.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 70%

“…These two categories of urban green space reflect the different ecosystem services that urban residents may receive from different types of urban vegetation. On the one hand, mixed or woody vegetation is more related with reduced flooding, psychological benefits, biodiversity conservation, and higher air quality (9). On the other hand, public parks are more associated with opportunities for recreation and health benefits from urban health.…”

Section: Quantification Of Urban Green Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a small but growing body of studies in U.S. or Europe exploring the differentiated distribution of green space in relation to age, religion ethnicity, minority status, and education. Taking 10 US urbanized areas as examples, Nesbitt et al (9) find a strong positive correlation between urban vegetation and higher education and income across most cities, and negative correlations between racial minority status and urban vegetation. Jay and Schraml (10) focus on immigrants and examine the role of urban forests for migrants in terms of their uses, perception, and integrative potential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Characterizing Horizontal and Vertical Perspectives of Spatial Equity for Various Urban Green Spaces: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

Wang

2020

Front. Public Health

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 70%

Section: Quantification Of Urban Green Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Characterizing Horizontal and Vertical Perspectives of Spatial Equity for Various Urban Green Spaces: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

Wang

2020

Front. Public Health

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“…Many studies have shown that green spaces are not evenly distributed across cities, which is problematic given their many benefits (Wolch et al 2005, Nesbitt et al 2019. New investments in green infrastructure could be sited in communities with less access to green space to address this inequity.…”

Section: Increasing Access To Green Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

A green infrastructure spatial planning model for evaluating ecosystem service tradeoffs and synergies across three coastal megacities

Meerow

2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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A growing number of cities are investing in green infrastructure to foster urban resilience and sustainability. While these nature-based solutions are often promoted on the basis of their multifunctionality, in practice, most studies and plans focus on a single benefit, such as stormwater management. This represents a missed opportunity to strategically site green infrastructure to leverage social and ecological co-benefits. To address this gap, this paper builds on existing modeling approaches for green infrastructure planning to create a more generalizable tool for comparing spatial tradeoffs and synergistic 'hotspots' for multiple desired benefits. I apply the model to three diverse coastal megacities: New York City, Los Angeles (United States), and Manila (Philippines), enabling cross-city comparisons for the first time. Spatial multi-criteria evaluation is used to examine how strategic areas for green infrastructure development across the cities change depending on which benefit is prioritized. GIS layers corresponding to six planning priorities (managing stormwater, reducing social vulnerability, increasing access to green space, improving air quality, reducing the urban heat island effect, and increasing landscape connectivity) are mapped and spatial tradeoffs assessed. Criteria are also weighted to reflect local stakeholders' desired outcomes as determined through surveys and stakeholder meetings and combined to identify high priority areas for green infrastructure development. To extend the model's utility as a decision-support tool, an interactive web-based application is developed that allows any user to change the criteria weights and visualize the resulting hotspots in real time. The model empirically illustrates the complexities of planning green infrastructure in different urban contexts, while also demonstrating a flexible approach for more participatory, strategic, and multifunctional planning of green infrastructure in cities around the world.

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Mapping supply of and demand for ecosystem services to assess environmental justice in New York City

Herreros-Cantis

McPhearson

2021

Ecological Applications

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Livability, resilience, and justice in cities are challenged by climate change and the historical legacies that together create disproportionate impacts on human communities. Urban green infrastructure has emerged as an important tool for climate change adaptation and resilience given their capacity to provide ecosystem services such as local temperature regulation, stormwater mitigation, and air purification. However, realizing the benefits of ecosystem services for climate adaptation depend on where they are locally supplied. Few studies have examined the potential spatial mismatches in supply and demand of urban ecosystem services, and even fewer have examined supply–demand mismatches as a potential environmental justice issue, such as when supply–demand mismatches disproportionately overlap with certain socio‐demographic groups. We spatially analyzed demand for ecosystem services relevant for climate change adaptation and combined results with recent analysis of the supply of ecosystem services in New York City (NYC). By quantifying the relative mismatch between supply and demand of ecosystem services across the city we were able to identify spatial hot‐ and coldspots of supply–demand mismatch. Hotspots are spatial clusters of census blocks with a higher mismatch and coldspots are clusters with lower mismatch values than their surrounding blocks. The distribution of mismatch hot‐ and coldspots was then compared to the spatial distribution of socio‐demographic groups. Results reveal distributional environmental injustice of access to the climate‐regulating benefits of ecosystem services provided by urban green infrastructure in NYC. Analyses show that areas with lower supply–demand mismatch tend to be populated by a larger proportion of white residents with higher median incomes, and areas with high mismatch values have lower incomes and a higher proportion of people of color. We suggest that urban policy and planning should ensure that investments in “nature‐based” solutions such as through urban green infrastructure for climate change adaptation do not reinforce or exacerbate potentially existing environmental injustices.

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Who has access to urban vegetation? A spatial analysis of distributional green equity in 10 US cities

Cited by 370 publications

References 54 publications

Characterizing Horizontal and Vertical Perspectives of Spatial Equity for Various Urban Green Spaces: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

Characterizing Horizontal and Vertical Perspectives of Spatial Equity for Various Urban Green Spaces: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

A green infrastructure spatial planning model for evaluating ecosystem service tradeoffs and synergies across three coastal megacities

Mapping supply of and demand for ecosystem services to assess environmental justice in New York City

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