How Are Green Spaces Distributed among Different Social Groups in Urban China? A National Level Study

Longfeng Wu,Seung Kyum Kim

doi:10.3390/f11121317

Abstract

The study analyzes the distributional equity of urban green space (UGS) among different social groups across all urban areas in China. Urban green space is measured in two ways: Park area per capita and vegetation coverage ratio within 1.6 km and 3.2 km featuring different ecosystem services they provide. Multiple regression analyses are conducted to assess relationships between different groups (children, the elderly, and migrant populations) and distributed UGS. Largely consistent to other national level studies, the nationwide analytical results indicate emerging social inequality of UGS during the urbanization of China, with a few nuances. A bi-fold pattern is observed in our case: Whilst areas with higher portions of children and senior people have less parks and high vegetation coverage, a marginalized group—internal migrant people, have more parks and low vegetation coverage in their vicinities. The results of regression analyses in different regions further shed light on revealing disparities of UGS in areas with varying socioeconomic development levels, geographical features, and urbanization paces. The implication of the study informs the decision makers to incorporate spatial patterns of social groups into green space guidance and evaluation for the purpose of promoting more equal development of UGS.

Highlights

As more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas [1], urban green space (UGS)is receiving increasing attention and has been widely implemented to reduce the negative impacts of urbanization [2,3,4]
This study explores how UGS is distributed among different social groups at a relatively fine-grain township level across China
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze all urban areas across the country, through which the emerging UGS inequality in Chinese cites is identified in terms of a few nuances examined in similar national studies worldwide

Summary

Introduction

As more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas [1], urban green space (UGS)is receiving increasing attention and has been widely implemented to reduce the negative impacts of urbanization [2,3,4]. Trees on streets, green roofs, and other forms of vegetation in UGS can improve environmental quality in different ways via air purification, runoff mitigation, water and soil conservation, heat-island effect reduction, and noise cancellation [11,12,13,14]. With such positive benefits, UGSs, large iconic parks, are known to raise the value of neighboring land and housing prices [15,16,17]. Forming a natural element of the urban system, UGSs in the form of wetland and countryside forests serve as key wildlife habitats and migration stepping-stones for conserving local and global biodiversity [18,19]

Methods

Results

Conclusion