Evaluating Urban Green Space Inequity to Promote Distributional Justice in Portland, Oregon

Evan Elderbrock (), Kory Russel, Yekang Ko, Elizabeth Budd, Lilah Gonen and Chris Enright
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Evan Elderbrock: Oregon Department of Forestry, 2600 State St, Salem, OR 97310, USA
Kory Russel: Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon, 210 Lawrence Hall, 1190 Franklin Blvd, Eugene, OR 97403, USA
Yekang Ko: Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon, 210 Lawrence Hall, 1190 Franklin Blvd, Eugene, OR 97403, USA
Elizabeth Budd: Department of Counseling Psychology & Human Services, University of Oregon College of Education, HEDCO Education Building, 1655 Alder St, Eugene, OR 97401, USA
Lilah Gonen: Oregon Department of Forestry, 2600 State St, Salem, OR 97310, USA
Chris Enright: Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Oregon, 210 Lawrence Hall, 1190 Franklin Blvd, Eugene, OR 97403, USA

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-25

Abstract: Access and exposure to urban green space—the combination of parks and vegetative cover in cities—are associated with various health benefits. As urban green space is often unequally distributed throughout cities, understanding how it is allocated across socio-demographic populations can help city planners and policy makers identify and address urban environmental justice and health equity issues. To our knowledge, no studies have yet combined assessments of park quality, park availability, and green cover to inform equitable urban green space planning. To this end, we developed a comprehensive methodology to identify urban green space inequities at the city scale and applied it in Portland, OR, USA. After auditing all public parks in Portland and gathering green cover data from publicly accessible repositories, we used a suite of statistical tests to evaluate distribution of parks and green cover across Census block groups, comprising race, ethnicity, income, and educational attainment characteristics. Right-of-way tree canopy cover was the most significant urban green space inequity identified in bivariate analysis ( r s = −0.73). Spatial autoregressive models identified that right-of-way, private, and overall tree canopy cover (Nagelkerke pseudo-R 2 = 0.66, 0.77, and 0.67, respectively) significantly decreased with the proportion of minoritized racial population and increased with median income. The results were then used to identify priority locations for specific urban green space investments. This research establishes a process to assess intra-urban green space inequities, as well as identify data-informed and spatially explicit planning priorities to promote health equity and environmental justice.

Keywords: environmental justice; urban forestry; parks; recreation; neighborhood characteristics; health equity; built environment; public health; spatial modeling; urban planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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