Building Volume Per Capita (BVPC): A Spatially Explicit Measure of Inequality Relevant to the SDGs

Tilottama Ghosh,Paul C. Sutton,Luca Coscieme,Sharolyn J. Anderson

doi:10.3389/frsc.2020.00037

Abstract

Building Volume Per Capita (BVPC - cubic meters of building per person) is presented as a proxy measure of economic inequality and a direct measure of housing inequality. The Sustainable Development Goal 10 (SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities) is synergic for achieving SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities. Access to safe and affordable housing, transport systems, and public spaces are some of the targets of SDG 11 that mostly link with reducing inequalities. The Habitat III New Urban Agenda sets equal access to urban spaces, infrastructures and basic services as crucial for developing sustainable cities. Earth Observation (EO) data including remotely sensed satellite data, airborne data, and model outputs, in combination with demographic, and other statistical data, have been gaining importance for monitoring progress of the SDGs. High spatial resolution building footprint data derived from aerial photographs, stereo imagery, and LIDAR data, obtained for the cities of California, between 2010-2015, were used in this study. These measures of building volume were rasterized and juxtaposed with (divided by) a variety of demographic data including vector-based census data of 2015 and LandScan raster data of population counts of 2015. The National Landcover dataset of 2011 was used to characterize the land cover variability of the cities. Using these datasets, the spatial pattern and distribution of BVPC for nine cities in California were studied. The results showed that BVPC was inversely related with intensity of development, and positively related with median household income within cities. A BV-GINI was also developed to characterize the variability of the BVPC at the census tract level and the pixel level. The results were inconclusive and require further investigation.

Highlights

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by 193 member countries of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2015), attempt to capture and respond in sufficient detail to the suite of global civilizational challenges
With the goal of developing a more objective measure of overcrowding and understanding its link to income inequality and intensity of development, we present the idea of Building Volume Per Capita (BVPC) as a spatially explicit measure of human living conditions
The BVPC for census tracts characterized as Medium Intensity Development showed the same pattern of six cities with an average around 1,000 m3 per person and the same other three cities with lower values (350, 519, and 408) for San Francisco, Del Mar, and Los Angeles, respectively

Summary

Introduction

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by 193 member countries of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2015), attempt to capture and respond in sufficient detail to the suite of global civilizational challenges. One of the greatest challenges facing the current civilization is rapid urbanization. Urban population trends indicate that humanity will increasingly. Overcrowding and congestion in dwelling units in cities affect the well-being of individuals. Because of the absence of private space, household members often suffer from stress, and develop other social and behavioral problems (Cox, 2016). The household crowding problem is often associated with neighborhoods where the working class and immigrant population live. It is a reflection of income inequality

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Discussion

Conclusion