Dataset Information

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities.

ABSTRACT: Rapid worldwide urbanization is at once the main cause and, potentially, the main solution to global sustainable development challenges. The growth of cities is typically associated with increases in socioeconomic productivity, but it also creates strong inequalities. Despite a growing body of evidence characterizing these heterogeneities in developed urban areas, not much is known systematically about their most extreme forms in developing cities and their consequences for sustainability. Here, we characterize the general patterns of income and access to services in a large number of developing cities, with an emphasis on an extensive, high-resolution analysis of the urban areas of Brazil and South Africa. We use detailed census data to construct sustainable development indices in hundreds of thousands of neighborhoods and show that their statistics are scale-dependent and point to the critical role of large cities in creating higher average incomes and greater access to services within their national context. We then quantify the general statistical trajectory toward universal basic service provision at different scales to show that it is characterized by varying levels of inequality, with initial increases in access being typically accompanied by growing disparities over characteristic spatial scales. These results demonstrate how extensions of these methods to other goals and data can be used over time and space to produce a simple but general quantitative assessment of progress toward internationally agreed sustainable development goals.

SUBMITTER: Brelsford C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5576773 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities.

Brelsford Christa C Lobo José J Hand Joe J Bettencourt Luís M A LMA

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20170501 34

Rapid worldwide urbanization is at once the main cause and, potentially, the main solution to global sustainable development challenges. The growth of cities is typically associated with increases in socioeconomic productivity, but it also creates strong inequalities. Despite a growing body of evidence characterizing these heterogeneities in developed urban areas, not much is known systematically about their most extreme forms in developing cities and their consequences for sustainability. Here, ...[more]

PMID: 28461489

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Project description:Accessible urban nature is a key component of creating sustainable urban communities and promoting human health and well-being. To balance the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, the United Nations adopted several sustainable developmental goals (SDGs), such as SDG 11 for sustainable cities and communities, which aims to improve urban planning and management, including equitable access to urban nature. However, more information is still needed regarding how planners and managers can promote urban nature visitation and equitable access during health and environmental crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to examine trends in urban nature visitation during the pandemic and then to determine if the effect of the pandemic on the frequency of urban nature site visitation varied by distance to home, using an innovative approach of analyzing both publicly available large-scale mobility data and a web-based survey of urban residents of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. The mobility data results showed that there was a negative mean % difference in park visits compared to baseline during the first and third lockdowns, but an increase compared to baseline between lockdowns and even during the second lockdown. This suggests that urban residents had greater need to reconnect with urban nature during and after periods of intense stress. In addition, the survey results showed an increasing negative effect of distance on urban nature site visitation during the pandemic, specifically for urban nature sites located more than 1 km from home. Altogether, the mobility data and survey results suggest that people who lived within 1 km of their preferred urban nature site had disproportionate access to the benefits of urban nature during and after lockdowns than others. To effectively make social and ecological transitions toward urban sustainability, it is vital that cities promote urban nature accessibility during current and future environmental and health crises. Cities should collaborate with diverse stakeholders to create/maintain accessible urban nature sites nearby all sociodemographic groups, provide sustainability education and training to convey the benefits of urban nature, and pursue participatory solutions for understanding urban nature needs and preferences. In this manner, it will be possible to address the growing influence of proximity/travel distance and additional factors that affect urban nature visitation and ultimately, human health and urban sustainability.

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Dataset Information

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities.

Publications

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities.

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