Urban green space and cooling services: Opposing changes of integrated accessibility and social equity along with urbanization

Abstract

• Integrated accessibility (IA) helps to understand the access to UGS cooling services. • Total IA to UGS decreased from the suburbs to the urban core. • Inequity of public and private UGS appeared beyond the 2 nd and 3 rd ring road respectively. • IA and social equity showed opposite changes along with urbanization. • The government intervention and market economy played potential roles. Heat stress poses a threat to public health and urban green space (UGS) offers a climate regulation service. When the total amount of UGS increases, the way to allocate UGS should also be equitable. This study assessed integrated accessibility (IA) including area, quality and pattern to measure the potential access to UGS cooling services through the modified 2SFCA method, and examined the social equity integrating house prices with IA in Beijing City. The results showed that IA to UGS generally decreased along the rural-urban gradient. For the correlation between IA and house prices, positive regression coefficients beyond the 2nd and the 3rd ring roads revealed significant social inequity of public and private UGS in the study area, respectively. The regression coefficient between the 4th and 5th ring roads was the largest (0.159** for public UGS and 0.507** for private UGS). Whereas, the relationship between IA and house prices for public UGS was significantly negative within the 2nd ring road (-0.157*). Opposite changes of IA and social inequity from suburban areas to the urban core revealed that the UGS became scarcer but benefited disadvantaged groups more, which might be driven by market economy in the suburbs and government intervention in the urban core. This study highlighted significant challenges to simultaneously achieve spatial accessibility and social equity in urbanization process.