A Multidisciplinary Approach to Analyzing Questions of Justice Issues in Urban Greenspace

What is known about what works in community-involved decision-making relating to urban green and blue spaces? A realist review protocol

BACKGROUND

There is now a relatively well-established evidence base suggesting that greener living environments and time spent in urban green and blue spaces (UGBS) can be beneficial for human health and wellbeing. However, benefits are not universal and there remain widespread social inequalities in access to such resources and experiences, particularly along axes of class, race, ethnicity, age and disability, and in relation to efforts to increase the availability and accessibility of such spaces. These injustices often relate to distributive, procedural and recognition-based processes. There is growing interest in how to ensure that efforts to increase access to or use of UGBS (whether through infrastructural or social programmes) result in equitable outcomes whilst minimising potential for exacerbating existing inequalities and injustices. Community engagement is considered an important step towards more inclusive UGBS decision-making, from planning and design to management and maintenance processes. It is thought to contribute to better and more widely trusted decisions, enhanced democracy, community satisfaction, civic interest and feelings of green space ownership, and greater longevity of UGBS projects. However, uneven representation and barriers to participation can create imbalances and undermine these benefits.

METHODS

An iterative, multi-stage realist-inspired review will be conducted to ask what works, in what context and in what ways relating to the meaningful involvement of communities in UGBS decision-making, focusing on the skills, capacities and capabilities of different stakeholders and the role of contexts and processes. 'Effectiveness' (or what works) will be understood as a multifaceted outcome, encompassing both the processes and results of community engagement efforts. Following a scoping stage to identify initial programme theory, inclusion/exclusion criteria and derive search terms, relevant databases and grey literature will be searched to identify interdisciplinary literature in two phases. The first phase will be used to further develop programme theories, which will be articulated as 'if then' statements. The second phase searches will be used to identify sources to further explore and evidence the programme and formal theory. We will assess all includable evidence for conceptual richness, prioritising more conceptually rich sources if needed.

DISCUSSION

The realist synthesis will explore the key context, mechanism and outcome configurations that appear to explain if and how different approaches to community-involved UGBS decision-making are or are not effective. We will consider factors such as different conceptualisations of community, and if and how they have been involved in UGBS decision-making; the types of tools and approaches used; and the socio-cultural and political or governance structures within which decision-making takes place.

The association of green space, tree canopy and parks with life expectancy in neighborhoods of Los Angeles

Substantial evidence suggests that access to urban green spaces and parks is associated with positive health outcomes, including decreased mortality. Few existing studies have investigated the association between green spaces and life expectancy (LE), and none have used small-area data in the U.S. Here we used the recently released U.S. Small-Area Life Expectancy Estimates Project data to quantify the relationship between LE and green space in Los Angeles County, a large diverse region with inequities in park access. We developed a model to quantify the association between green space and LE at the census tract level. We evaluated three green space metrics: normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, 0.6-meter scale), percent tree canopy cover, and accessible park acres. We statistically adjusted for 15 other determinants of LE. We also developed conditional autoregressive models to account for spatial dependence. Tree canopy and NDVI were both significantly associated with higher LE. For an interquartile range (IQR) increase in each metric respectively, the spatial models demonstrated a 0.24 to 0.33-year increase in LE. Tree canopy and NDVI also modified the effect of park acreage on LE. ln areas with tree canopy levels below the county median, an IQR increase in park acreage was associated with an increase of 0.12 years. Although on an individual level these effects were modest, we predicted 155,300 years of LE gains across the population in LA County if all areas below median tree canopy were brought to the county median of park acres. If tree canopy or NDVI were brought to median levels, between 570,300 and 908,800 years of LE could be gained. The majority of potential gains are in areas with predominantly Hispanic/Latinx and Black populations. These findings suggest that equitable access to green spaces could result in substantial population health benefits.

Strengthening Equity and Inclusion in Urban Greenspace: Interrogating the Moral Management & Policing of 2SLGBTQ+ Communities in Toronto Parks

There is growing recognition that greenspace provides invaluable benefits to health and wellbeing, and is essential infrastructure for promoting both social and environmental sustainability in urban settings. This paper contributes towards efforts to build 'just' and equitable urban sustainability, and more specifically greenspace management, by drawing attention to hostility and exclusion experienced by two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, genderqueer, pansexual, transsexual, intersex and gender-variant (2SLGBTQ+) park occupants. There is evidence that access to greenspace is inequitable-despite ongoing media accounts of targeted violence and discriminatory police patrolling of 2SLGBTQ+ communities in urban parks, this population has not received adequate research attention. This paper examines systemic barriers that impede urban greenspace access among 2SLGBTQ+ communities, including how the threat of violence in greenspace limits opportunities for accessing benefits associated with naturalized settings. These themes are explored within the context of the City of Toronto, Canada. Our mixed-method approach draws upon key informant interviews, key document content analysis, and ground-truthing. Our findings reveal how queer corporeality, kinship and love subvert deeply entrenched heteronormative social values and understandings of sexuality, partnership, gender, and use of public space, challenging institutional understandings of morality and daily life. The paper concludes by reflecting on the state of 2SLGBTQ+ communities' relationships to greenspace, and potential ways forward in building greater inclusivity into the social fabric of park design and management.

Modeling the resilient supply of ecosystem function for climate change adaptive management in Wetland City

Rapid urbanization causes wetland ecosystem functions to degrade worldwide. This phenomenon negatively affects the resilience of ecosystem functions in the face of unexpected impacts, particularly climate change. An approach is required for combining resilience with management in a Wetland City. This study aims to model the resilience of ecosystem functions for climate change adaptation management in a Wetland City via system dynamics from 2021 to 2100. First, we set a system boundary through expert interviews to identify the main issues in the social-ecological system of a Wetland City. Second, we constructed a social-ecological system of a Wetland City that provides ecosystem function trade-offs between flood control and wildlife habitat provisioning. Then, we simulated the resilience of ecosystem functions according to different climate change adaptative management scenarios. Finally, we determined an appropriate scenario for minimizing the impacts of ecosystem function trade-offs reinforced by climate change. As a result, we recommend that the water level should be managed such that the controlled flood water level ranges from 12 to 14 m and that 30% of the willow areas should be thinned each year. Based on these simulation results, we proposed three climate change adaptive management strategies: considering long-term plans including short-term effects, networking with multiscale community participation, and applying sustainable wetland management to urban planning. Ultimately, this study can contribute to planning and management guidelines for a Wetland City.

How Do Nature-Based Solutions’ Color Tones Influence People’s Emotional Reaction? An Assessment via Virtual and Augmented Reality in a Participatory Process

Simulations of urban transformations are an effective tool for engaging citizens and enhancing their understanding of urban design outcomes. Citizens’ involvement can positively contribute to foster resilience for mitigating the impact of climate change. Successful integration of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) into the urban fabric enables both the mitigation of climate hazards and positive reactions of citizens. This paper presents two case studies in a southern district of Milan (Italy), investigating the emotional reaction of citizens to existing urban greenery and designed NBS. During the events, the participants explored in Virtual Reality (VR) (n = 48) and Augmented Reality (AR) (n = 63) (i) the district in its current condition and (ii) the design project of a future transformation including NBS. The environmental exploration and the data collection took place through the exp-EIA© method, integrated into the mobile app City Sense. The correlations between the color features of the viewed landscape and the emotional reaction of participants showed that weighted saturation of green and lime colors reduced the unpleasantness both in VR and AR, while the lime pixel area (%) reduced the unpleasantness only in VR. No effects were observed on the Arousal and Sleepiness factors. The effects show high reliability between VR and AR for some of the variables. Implications of the method and the benefits for urban simulation and participatory processes are discussed.

Assessing Inequalities in Wellbeing at a Neighbourhood Scale in Low-Middle-Income-Country Secondary Cities and Their Implications for Long-Term Livability

To ensure future sustainability, cities need to consider concepts of livability and resident wellbeing alongside environmental, economic and infrastructure development equity. The current rapid urbanization experienced in many regions is leading to sustainability challenges, but also offers the opportunity to deliver infrastructure supporting the social aspects of cities and the services that underpin them alongside economic growth. Unfortunately, evidence of what is needed to deliver urban wellbeing is largely absent from the global south. This paper contributes to filling this knowledge gap through a novel interdisciplinary mixed methods study undertaken in two rapidly changing cities (one Thai and one Kenyan) using qualitative surveys, subjective wellbeing and stress measurements, and spatial analysis of urban infrastructure distribution. We find the absence of basic infrastructure (including waste removal, water availability and quality) unsurprisingly causes significant stress for city residents. However, once these services are in place, smaller variations (inequalities) in social (crime, tenure) and environmental (noise, air quality) conditions begin to play a greater role in determining differences in subjective wellbeing across a city. Our results indicate that spending time in urban greenspaces can mitigate the stressful impacts of city living even for residents of informal neighborhoods. Our data also highlights the importance of places that enable social interactions supporting wellbeing-whether green or built. These results demonstrate the need for diversity and equity in the provision of public realm spaces to ensure social and spatial justice. These findings strengthen the need to promote long term livability in LMIC urban planning alongside economic growth, environmental sustainability, and resilience.

Can Allotment Gardens (AGs) Be Considered an Example of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) Based on the Use of Historical Green Infrastructure?

The term nature-based solutions (NBSs) is understood as a multidisciplinary umbrella concept that includes aspects such as green/blue infrastructure and urban gardens and forests. However, the important question here is what features of ecosystem-based approaches are essential for them to be considered nature-based? This study aims to answer this question by analysing the potential of allotment gardens (AGs) to be considered as NBSs. To do so, the possibilities and obstacles regarding a Polish case study were analysed based on the following six research questions: (1) How do AGs use blue and green infrastructure? (2) What problem(s) do AGs solve today? (3) What kind of benefits do AGs provide? (4) Do AGs possess implementation and management capabilities? (5) Can AGs be treated as economically efficient? (6) What are the advantages of AGs versus other possible solution(s)? With regards to obstacles, the study has identified: institutional barriers, irregular distribution of benefits, and deficiencies in economic efficiency. Nevertheless, AGs together with other historical urban green/blue infrastructure may be regarded as a kind of unsophisticated NBS, the effectiveness of which is limited. These solutions may be created as independent structures or (historical) green/blue infrastructure may be enlarged, fitted out, linked, and improved to implement NBS projects.

Stakeholders’ Engagement on Nature-Based Solutions: A Systematic Literature Review

Cities are facing a broad range of social and environmental challenges due to the current pressure of global urbanization. Nature-based solutions aim to utilize green infrastructure to improve people’s health and wellbeing. The design of urban environments must embrace the individual ideals of citizens and stakeholders which can only be achieved if effective methods of communication, involvement, and feedback are ensured. Such a procedure creates trust during its implementation, helping to take ownership and stewardship of processes and sites. This systematic literature review explores the current state of the art regarding citizen and stakeholder participation in nature-based solutions (NBS). The search on the SCOPUS database identified 142 papers in total that met the inclusion criteria. The participation analysis was separated in two areas: (a) analysis of perceptions, preferences, and perspectives of citizens and stakeholders, and (b) analysis of the participation process, including challenges and opportunities, motivations, methods and frameworks, and collaborative governance. The results revealed that stakeholder and citizen participation or collaboration in nature-based solutions is increasingly recognized as promising; however, research in several related domains is still lacking.