Literature Review Reveals a Global Access Inequity to Urban Green Spaces

Yan Sun, Somidh Saha, Heike Tost, Xiangqi Kong and Chengyang Xu
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Yan Sun: The Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Forest Ecosystem of State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Research Center for Urban Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Somidh Saha: Research Group Sylvanus, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlstr. 11, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
Heike Tost: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, J5, 68159 Mannheim, Germany
Xiangqi Kong: The Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Forest Ecosystem of State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Research Center for Urban Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Chengyang Xu: The Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Forest Ecosystem of State Forestry and Grassland Administration, Research Center for Urban Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: Differences in the accessibility to urban resources between different racial and socioeconomic groups have exerted pressure on effective planning and management for sustainable city development. However, few studies have examined the multiple factors that may influence the mitigation of urban green spaces (UGS) inequity. This study reports the results of a systematic mapping of access inequity research through correspondence analysis (CA) to reveal critical trends, knowledge gaps, and clusters based on a sample of 49 empirical studies screened from 563 selected papers. Our findings suggest that although the scale of cities with UGS access inequity varies between countries, large cities (more than 1,000,000 population), especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), are particularly affected. Moreover, the number of cities in which high socioeconomic status (high-SES) groups (e.g., young, rich, or employed) are at an advantage concerning access to UGS is substantially higher than the number of cities showing better accessibility for low-SES groups. Across the reviewed papers, analyses on mitigating interventions are sparse, and among the few studies that touch upon this, we found different central issues in local mitigating strategies between high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs. An explanatory framework is offered, explaining the interaction between UGS access inequity and local mitigating measures.

Keywords: access inequity; systematic mapping; empirical studies; city scale; inequity mitigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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