Objective. In the environmental justice literature, uncertainty exists about the underlying causes of environmental risk disparities, especially as they relate to residential choices. To simplify, ...the two dominant views are racism/discrimination versus inevitable market dynamics. In this article, we move aside from these to examine the potential role of various residential choice constraints on environmental injustice and how they may be interrelated. Methods. Using an agent-based simulation model, we examine the interaction of race-based constraints with other experimental conditions that can affect minorities’ residential choice sets. Results. Simulation experiments demonstrate that if the minority holds relatively lower similarity preferences, the environmental quality gap declines when other conditions are held constant. However, racial parity in communities also decreases the environmental quality gap, as do slower population growth and larger geographies. Conclusion. These results enable us to look at the problem of race-based environmental injustice more holistically, and begin to think about holistic solutions that may finally address what has heretofore been an intractable social problem.
The connectivity of urban green space has a strong influence on the benefits that green space provides—more connected green space has been linked to greater biodiversity, increased recreational ...opportunities, improved air quality, and increased noise attenuation. Previous urban green space equity research largely focuses on the total amount or accessibility of green space, ignoring connectivity and other measures of configuration that also impact green space equity. Taking both a demographic and spatial approach, we examine whether green space (i.e., park and tree canopy) area, patch size, and connectivity are distributed equally in ten U.S. cities. We find that not only are wealthy, college-educated, and predominately White census tracts more likely to have greater total green space, the green space patches are larger and more connected. This inequality was stronger for tree canopy than for parks, pointing to the need for policy interventions to improve tree canopy connectivity in areas of systematic disinvestment.
•We examine the distributional equality of green space composition and configuration.•Green space inequality goes beyond the total amount of green space area.•White, wealthy, and highly educated neighborhoods have more connected green space.•Tree canopy connectivity exhibited the greatest spatial clustering and inequality.
This editorial opens by introducing Internet Plus Government, a new government initiative emerging after the US presidential election in 2008. Comparing to the more descriptive definitions of ...e-government, supporters of ‘Internet Plus Government’ emphasize the transformative and normative aspect of the newest generation of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs). They argue that the new initiative designates how government should operate and in turn implies how state-citizen relationships are transformed. To understand the core of this initiative and whether it offers new opportunities to solve public problems, we conducted analyses of research articles published in the e-governance11E-governance is majorly concerned with the adoption, implementation and use of ICTs in the relationships between state and the society in the complex process of delivery of public policy and public operations (Mueleman, 2008). It includes three distinct strands: Administrative governance; interactive governance and governance as self-organizing networks (Osborne, 2010). area between 2008 and 2017. Our analysis suggests that the Internet Plus Government initiative has enriched the government information infrastructure. That is, it has enabled the accumulation and use of huge volumes of data for better decision making. The advancement of open data, the wide use of social media, and the potential of data analytics have also generated pressure to address challenging questions and issues in e-democracy.22E-democracy involves the use of digital networks by which government solicits or receives the views of citizens, businesses and other organizations “on matters ranging from full-scale legislative change to the tweaking of the management of services and programs” (Perri 6, 2004) However, the analysis leads us to deliberate on whether Internet Plus Government initiatives worldwide have actually achieved their goal. After introducing papers included in this special issue, we present challenges to be addressed before Internet Plus Government initiatives realize their potential towards better public governance.
•Examine the progress of Internet Plus Government Initiatives worldwide•Review the development of e-governance in the last decade•Identify key ICTs adopted, implemented, used by governments worldwide•Analyze changes in methodological approaches and governance domains impacted by Internet Plus Government Initiatives•Present challenges to be addressed before Internet Plus Government initiatives can make public governance better
Investment in park green space can improve the quality of life for urban residents but has also been linked to green gentrification. Investments in informal green space have been proposed as means ...for improving green access while minimizing the risk of displacement. Very little empirical research, however, has examined the differential impacts of park and non-park green space investments in the broader context of neighborhood greening. To further this understanding, we examine the association between park and non-park green space increases and the likelihood of gentrification in Chicago using satellite imagery, land use, and census data during two periods—1990–2000 and 2000–2010. We found that green space of any type did not have a statistically significant role in increasing the odds of gentrification, but the importance of green space variables in predicting gentrification increased with time. Neighborhood characteristics like the distance to downtown or the presence of gentrifying neighbors were most predictive, suggesting that green investment efforts should consider the pre-existing risk factors for gentrification. Our results do not dispute that green space has the potential to play a role in gentrification, simply that green gentrification may be strongly contingent upon timing and neighborhood characteristics.
•Green space investments alone had no statistical association with gentrification•Neighborhood characteristics were more predictive of gentrification than green space•Green space became more predictive of gentrification in recent years
Over two decades have passed since the federal policy on environmental justice (EO 12898) was issued. However, empirical evidence indicates that injustice persists and that US states vary in their ...adoption of the terms of the environmental justice (EJ) policy. Moreover, studies of the explanations for the variation in states’ adoption of EJ policy are rare and have yielded puzzling findings—e.g., environmental interest groups are not associated with states’ EJ policy adoption, or the severity of problems is associated inversely with their adoption. We examined the progress and variation in states’ EJ policy adoption as of 2005 using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Our analysis showed first that a strong environmental interest group presence, combined with high racial diversity and low problem severity, is sufficient for a high level of EJ policy adoption, especially in Western states. Second, when environmental interest group presence is weak, if it is combined, again, with high racial diversity and the presence of a more liberal state government, a high level of EJ policy adoption also occurs. This is observed in the East coast, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the USA. Environmental politics and policy research can benefit from a configurational approach, especially when there is no guiding theory on the conjunctional effects of key factors.
•We examined distributive equity based on the use of green spaces.•Access to local parks decreased as the percentage of the elderly population increased.•Local park use increased as the percentage of ...children and the elderly increased.•The results suggest that access and use can be different for the same group.•Mobility data provide novel insights for park visit behavior.
Previous green space equity studies have relied on access measures, such as the distance to, number of, or size of green spaces and have produced mixed results on green space disparities in the U.S. While the benefits of green spaces can be fulfilled when people visit them, attention to the differential use of green spaces has been less common. We examined green space inequalities using traditional access measures in order to understand which group has lower access to local parks and then investigated which urban residents visit local parks more using SafeGraph’s mobility data. We found that the Phoenix metro area experiences green space access disparities by age group and (partially) income rather than by race and ethnicity. Access to local parks consistently decreased as the percentage of the elderly population increased in a neighborhood. However, the visit to local parks consistently increased as the percentage of children and the elderly increased. We discuss the implications of our findings for urban planning.
The political affiliation of governors has been highlighted as the most important predictor of a state's aggressiveness in responding to the pandemic, that is, Democratic governors advocated for more ...stringent policies than their Republican counterparts. However, of the 39 states that issued a statewide stay‐at‐home order (SAHO) mandate, nearly half were led by Republican governors. Using a qualitative comparative analysis, we find that gubernatorial partisanship alone cannot explain SAHO mandates. If partisanship played a role at all, it did so only in states with large metropolitan areas or with fewer public health resources. Regardless of the governor's partisanship, the combination of problem severity and public health resources was sufficient to produce a stringent policy outcome. Emphasis on gubernatorial decisions as purely political overlooks material needs relevant for future pandemic response and the potential for evidence and future coordination.
Despite efforts to control fraud in public assistance programs, the perception and realities of the problem persist. Serious barriers related to data collection and research methods impede the ...understanding of how and why fraud occurs, thereby limiting options for improving program integrity. This article argues that based on a complex adaptive systems (CAS) perspective, social welfare fraud can be understood as a collective outcome emerging from repeated interactions among stakeholders during the routinized business processes of public assistance programs. While dealing with fraud, great attention must be paid to how it occurs and persists, not just how serious the problem is or who commits these crimes.
