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Under pressure: Factors shaping urban greenspace provision in a mid-sized city.

ABSTRACT: Urban greenspaces provide diverse ecosystem functions, services and benefits to residents. Much commentary has been offered to date about citizens' demands for more urban greenspace. Less attention, however, has been given to the 'supply side' pressures experienced by local government in delivering urban greenspace, particularly in mid-sized cities. Greater attention to factors shaping supply is warranted, especially in the context of rapid population growth. By understanding how existing greenspace provision approaches can stymie the efforts of local government to meet citizens' needs, new approaches can be identified. This paper assesses several factors shaping urban greenspace provision in Surrey - a city within the Greater Vancouver area. Insights are derived from in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, public documents, and census and municipal data about parks and their context as a specific type of greenspace. Our findings suggest that governance tools, economy and property markets, and financial and natural resources manifest as core factors influencing urban greenspace provision in Surrey. A reliance on governance tools premised upon standards has created park provision paradoxes. Treating greenspace provision as a largely technocratic exercise may be limiting Surrey's ability to respond to changing politics, economics and population trends. We point to alternative approaches.

SUBMITTER: Boulton C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7334663 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Under pressure: Factors shaping urban greenspace provision in a mid-sized city.

Boulton Chris C Dedekorkut-Howes Aysin A Holden Meg M Byrne Jason J

Cities (London, England) 20200704

Urban greenspaces provide diverse ecosystem functions, services and benefits to residents. Much commentary has been offered to date about citizens' demands for more urban greenspace. Less attention, however, has been given to the 'supply side' pressures experienced by local government in delivering urban greenspace, particularly in mid-sized cities. Greater attention to factors shaping supply is warranted, especially in the context of rapid population growth. By understanding how existing greens ...[more]

PMID: 32834327

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Project description:BackgroundStudy results are inconclusive regarding how access to greenspace differs by sociodemographic status potentially due to lack of consideration of varying dimensions of greenspace.ObjectiveWe investigated how provision of greenspace by sociodemographic status varies by greenspace metrics reflecting coverage and accessibility of greenspace.MethodsWe used vegetation levels measured by Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), percent of greenspace, percent tree cover, percent tree cover along walkable roads, and percent of people living ≤500 m of a park entrance (park accessibility). We considered data for 2008-2013 in Census block groups in 3 US regions: New Haven, Connecticut; Baltimore, Maryland; and Durham, North Carolina. We examined geographical distribution of greenspace metrics and their associations with indicators of income, education, linguistic isolation, race/ethnicity, and age. We used logistic regression to examine associations between these greenspace metrics and age-standardized mortality controlling for sociodemographic indicators.ResultsWhich region had the highest greenspace depended on the greenspace metric used. An interquartile range (33.6%) increase in low-income persons was associated with a 6.2% (95% CI: 3.1, 9.3) increase in park accessibility, whereas it was associated with 0.03 (95% CI: -0.035, -0.025) to 7.3% (95% CI: -8.7, -5.9) decreases in other greenspace metrics. A 15.5% increase in the lower-education population was associated with a 2.1% increase (95% CI: -0.3%, 4.6%) in park accessibility but decreases with other greenspace metrics (0.02 to 5.0%). These results were consistent across the 3 study areas. The odds of mortality rate more than the 75th percentile rate were inversely associated with all greenspace metrics except for annual average EVI (OR 1.27, 95% CI: 0.43, 3.79) and park accessibility (OR 1.40, 95% CI: 0.52, 3.75).SignificanceEnvironmental justice concerns regarding greenspace differ by the form of natural resources, and pathways of health benefits can differ by form of greenspace and socioeconomic status within communities.Impact statementComparisons of exposure to greenspace between different greenspace metrics should be incorporated in decision-making within local contexts.

Dataset Information

Under pressure: Factors shaping urban greenspace provision in a mid-sized city.

Publications

Under pressure: Factors shaping urban greenspace provision in a mid-sized city.

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