This study investigates an innovative approach to enhance urban green space access by adding new park entrances rather than expanding the green space itself, aiming for sustainable urban development. ...Taking Shenzhen as a case study, we first developed a universal framework to identify potential locations for new entrances and used network analysis in ArcGIS to quantify green service improvements. Then, under the 15-min city concept, the impact on green accessibility and equity was assessed using the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method and Gini coefficient analysis. Results indicate that (1) new entrances enabled 21.10% of residents to access parks with an average reduced travel distance of 214.71 m, and increased the population within a 15-min walk to parks by 7.34%. (2) This strategy proved cost-effective, serving 27.66% of residents at 1/38 the cost of creating new green spaces. (3) Furthermore, the accessible green area within a 15-min walking or cycling increased by 0.18 km2 and 1.42 km2, respectively, without affecting green equity. Our findings support the policy of adding park entrances as a feasible and efficient urban strategy, supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3 and 11, and the policy can be implemented across almost cities.
•A proposed framework identifies 203 new park entrances from a pool of 2,237 candidates.•New entrances reduce the average travel distance to parks by 214.71 m for 21.10% of residents.•Adding green space costs 37.85 times more than new entrances for serving an equivalent population.•The policy of adding park entrances is suitable for most cities and contributes to sustainable development.
On a rainy day in May 2007, the mayor of Paris inaugurated the Jardins d'Éole, a park whose completion was hailed internationally as an exemplar of sustainable urbanism. The park was the result of a ...hard-fought, decadelong protest movement in a low-income Maghrebi and African immigrant district starved for infrastructure, but the Mayor's vision of urban sustainability was met with jeers.
Drawing extensively from immersive, firsthand ethnographic research with northeast Paris residents, as well as an analysis of green architecture and urban design, Andrew Newman argues that environmental politics must be separated from the construct of urban sustainability, which has been appropriated by forces of redevelopment and gentrification in Paris and beyond. France's turbulent political environment also provides Newman with powerful new insights into the ways in which multiethnic coalitions can emerge⎯even amid overt racism and Islamophobia⎯in the struggle for more just cities and more inclusive societies.
A tale of multidimensional political efforts,Landscape of Discontentcuts through the rhetoric of green cities to reveal the promise that environmentalism holds for urban communities anywhere.
Water erosion is a worldwide problem that has been depleting soils mainly in tropical regions, due to the greater volume of precipitated water. In this sense, recent prediction methods in tropical ...regions such as dendrogeomorphology are necessary and important to identify and date the influence and correlation between erosion processes and vegetation. This study aimed to understand and scale the erosive processes, through the annual historical recognition of the rate of soil loss and sedimentation, applying the concepts of dendrogeomorphology in the evaluation of the stem and roots of trees of the species of Anadenanthera macrocarpa and Schefflera morototoni, in a conservation unit in the Brazilian Cerrado. Trees were selected in the following soil level conditions: (i) having root exposure, (ii) no exposure (buried), and (iii) no change in soil level (control). Cross-dating was performed using the COFECHA software program, and the information applied in dating scars and abnormal radial growth periods were observed in exposed roots and associated with the beginning of erosion processes. The results indicated that the occurrence of the erosive processes ascertained by anatomical changes in the exposed roots and a most common erosive rains date from 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2017. While changes in the trunk growth ring width start from 1992, with similar years between the two species of 2013 and 2017. The highest soil accumulation rates were 18.6 mm/year, vertical losses were 500 mm per year and horizontal losses were 665 mm. Finally, there is a positive correlation between the number of scars and an abrupt increase in the growth rings of the exposed roots with the number of erosive rains.
Las mariposas diurnas son un grupo diverso y relativamente bien conocido en Colombia. Sin embargo, son pocos los estudios que evalúan su diversidad en los parques urbanos y periféricos, por lo tanto, ...se planteó esta investigación, con el fin de evaluar la riqueza y abundancia de mariposas diurnas presentes en áreas verdes urbanas del municipio de La Dorada, (Caldas). El estudio fue realizado en 4 parques urbanos de este municipio, entre los meses de julio y noviembre de 2020, con un esfuerzo de muestreo de 288 horas; las mariposas fueron recolectadas con jama y trampas Van Someren-Rydon cebadas con camarón licuado y banano en descomposición. Se colectaron 308 mariposas pertenecientes a 39 especies, siendo las más abundantes: Phoebis sennae, Phoebis argante y Ascia monuste. Los índices de Shannon y de equitatividad J, indican que el parque periférico de Guarinó es el que presenta una mayor diversidad y equitatividad, con un 87% de las especies reportadas, entre las que se destaca Parides eurimedes una especie endémica de Colombia. A su vez, la curva de acumulación de especies indica que la representatividad del muestreo estuvo el 85 y 81% respectivamente con base en los estimadores Chao 1 e ICE.
•Distributive patterns alone cannot explain older people’s park visitation patterns.•Older people’s Integration in social networks enhances park visitation.•Elders with bad self-rated health are ...likely to visit parks hardly ever.•Framework that considers distributive, interactional and participatory justice alike.
Urban green spaces provide multiple ecosystem services to city residents and are considered an important element of socio-environmental justice. For older people, urban green spaces are important for health and well-being because they provide spaces for physical activity and social interaction. They can be regarded as spaces of encounter. Drawing on a comprehensive dataset of park visitation patterns, demographic characteristics and social network patterns, we explore older people’s urban green space visitation patterns for the case of Berlin (Germany). We found that older people who have close social networks use urban parks more often than those who are more isolated in their daily lives. Self-estimated good health also contributes to more frequent park use. We discuss these findings along the three dimensions of socio-environmental justice: distributive, interactional and procedural. Based on our findings, we develop a framework that calls for an integrated view of these three justice dimensions, which all contribute equally and inseparably to a just provision of urban ecosystem services. Most importantly, we recommend urban planning to understand the city as an integrated socio-ecological system in which the planning and design of urban green spaces focus on providing ecosystem services together with enabling the creation of social networks in order to increase socio-environmental justice.
Urban parks are important social resources that can promote the physical and mental health of visitors. Concerns over adverse effects brought by the inequitable distribution of park resources are ...increasing worldwide. Many studies have used park accessibility to address this environmental inequity issue by focusing on populations with varying socioeconomic statuses and racial/ethnic compositions across regions. However, the inequities caused by differences in park quality are under-represented in these studies, especially for minority groups such as elderly individuals, children and unemployed individuals. Thus, this study proposes an improved environmental equity assessment that integrates park accessibility and multidimensional park quality, which includes aesthetic features (AFs), facilities for recreation (FRs), facilities for convenience (FCs), and a total score (TS). The results indicate that FCs related to people's basic needs are the most accessible service in Shanghai's urban parks, followed by AFs and FRs. According to the improved index, as with high socio-economic groups, areas with more elderly and unemployed people have easier access to better-quality urban parks; unfortunately, the opposite is true for children. Our findings also suggest that the priority of urban park planning and management is supply and demand balance, followed by improvements and adjustments of park quality. The proposed index could be used as a useful tool to facilitate the enhancement of social equity in urban park planning and management.
•An environmental equity assessment that integrates park accessibility and multidimensional park quality is proposed.•Where accessibility is good, improvements to park quality are important to create an equitable park environment.•In Shanghai's central city, children may be a vulnerable group in terms of access to good urban park resources.
Green space accessibility is an important component of life quality, due to the many benefits it brings to human communities. This aspect is especially relevant in urban environments, which are ...characterized by a high density of residential and commercial buildings, as well as by higher levels of pollution (especially air and noise pollution) caused mainly by transportation or industrial activities. Thus, city inhabitants must have good access to green spaces, where they can enjoy peace, tranquility, clean air, vegetation and which if properly equipped, will allow them to carry out multiple recreational, sporting, social and cultural activities. This study reveals accessibility levels to urban parks in the city of Constanța, calculated in a GIS environment using the Balanced Floating Catchment Area (BFCA) approach on three distance thresholds: 400 m, 800 m and 1200 m. The results of this study reveal both low general values and important territorial differentiations regarding the accessibility of urban parks. The highest level of accessibility was observed for the 400 m threshold, while the lowest level was observed for the 1200 m threshold. These aspects can have important implications in the process of sustainable urban planning of a city that encouraged residential construction (19.1% increase from 1990 to 2021) at the expense of green spaces and the quality of life of its inhabitants.
•We measured pedestrian accessibility of urban parks in Constanța, Romania, using a Balanced Floating Catchment Area approach.•There are strong territorial differences regarding pedestrian accessibility to urban parks.•Newly built neighborhoods have one of the lowest values of pedestrian accessibility to urban parks.•Pedestrian accessibility to urban parks needs to be improved in the city of Constanța.
Urban parks, pivotal in fostering physical activity, mental well-being, and environmental stewardship, are integral to green infrastructure planning. Despite advances in georeferenced data ...applications, existing park classifications often overlook actual visitation patterns. This study reclassifies urban parks using over 5.9 million records from approximately 330 thousand visitors across 300 Tokyo parks, comparing with size-based park categorizations. We employed a range of analytical tools, including principal component analysis, Isolation Forest algorithm, various clustering algorithms, and the Gini index. Our findings first revealed four key visitation indicators, activity intensity, utilization efficiency, temporal occupancy, and revisit volume. These indicators uncovered parks with atypical visitation patterns within each size category, leading to three novel park classifications, everyday leisure parks, social destination parks, and seasonal activity parks. Moreover, we discovered notable disparities in distances traveled to parks, particularly during nights, weekends, and holidays, with pronounced inequalities in seasonal activity parks and smaller parks. The findings advocate for a nuanced park management strategy, prioritizing maintenance and amenity development aligned with observed visitation patterns to enhance recreational potential, thereby contributing insights to urban park research that support the advancement of green infrastructure planning and policy aimed at improving park utility and enjoyment.
•Unveiled four principal visitation indicators, capturing nuanced spatio-temporal visitation behaviors.•Detected atypical visitation patterns across all size-based park categories, highlighting disparities in park usage.•Identified three distinct park categories based on visitation data, each with unique visitation patterns.•Significant trip distance disparities were found in smaller and seasonal activity parks.
Urban green spaces (UGS) deliver a wide range of regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services (CES), relevant to support the achievement of some United Nations Sustainable Development ...Goals (e.g., Goal 11: sustainable cities and communities, and Goal 3: good health and well-being). However, knowledge of preferences and uses of UGS by urban dwellers is still lacking. This study assesses the CES perceived by different users in five distinct urban parks located in Coimbra, Portugal: Manuel Braga (secular park), Botanical garden, Choupal national forest, Mondego green park (large area placed next to the river), and Vale das Flores (linear park located in a residential area). A questionnaire survey was performed in each park to investigate the activities performed and their relevance for the users, users' motivations to develop the activities on that specific UGS, the perceived benefits regarding physical and emotional well-being and social interactions, and users' perception about disservices. The results showed that walking, meeting people, practicing and doing activities with children are the activities performed by most users and are perceived as beneficial for physical and emotional well-being. Multifunctionality is a characteristic of all parks and highly appreciated by the users. Significant differences in socio-demographic characteristics of the users and motivations are recorded between parks. The tranquillity of space and landscape beauty are the main motivations to use Manuel Braga Park and the Botanical garden. Distance to the park and transportation means are particularly important for Botanical garden and Vale das Flores park users. Age group and average monthly income were associated in both Choupal national forest, Mondego green park and Vale das Flores park, denoting that older and wealthier users are more able to enjoy these parks. Users' problems or ecosystem disservices were not identified, although plagues (e.g., mosquitoes) and dangerous animals recorded average concerns in the Choupal national forest and in the Vale das Flores and Mondego green parks. This work's findings can help decision-makers better understand users' needs and expectations, thus improving UGS design and management to attract more citizens.
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•Accessibility to Urban Green Spaces (UGS) is a key aspect considered by users.•The UGS multifunctionality influences the selection of spaces.•Physical and emotional wellbeing are highly rated by users in all UGS.•Tranquillity and landscape beauty are major motivations in UGS choice.•Ecosystem disservices are not considered a threat in the parks studied.
•The article discusses pocket parks towards more sustainable and resilient cities.•Illustrates features and benefits of pocket parks with a multi-disciplinary perspective.•Explores the challenges for ...their implementation in Mediterranean urban areas.•Proposes an integrated framework to favor pocket parks’ creation and management.•Presents multi-disciplinary best practices that can favor PP's diffusion.
Pocket-sized urban parks may contribute to more widely distributing the advantages created by parks in urban neighborhoods, allowing more citizens to benefit more frequently from park environments. Notwithstanding their several benefits, including citizens’ psychological, physiological and physical well-being; possibilities for recreational activities; and improved economic attractiveness of a neighborhood, pocket parks (PPs) are not yet widely diffused worldwide. Considering the state of the art of PPs, we identify four main perspectives that characterize them: architectural, microclimate, managerial and legal. Focusing on a relevant case study, i.e., the Mediterranean context, we analyze the multi-disciplinary challenges – connected to the four identified dimensions – for their diffusion elsewhere. Finally, we provide a general framework for favoring PPs’ creation and management, as the original contribution of this work. Besides advancing scientific knowledge about PPs, our results also interest policymakers and public organizations, as the diffusion of PPs can mitigate urban environmental challenges by creating pleasant experiences for citizens and favoring economic activities.
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