Spatial Inequalities Research Articles

Terra infirma: On the base map in urban cartography and GIS

This article investigates the ways in which base maps are a fundamental, but under-recognised, starting point for planners, architects, cartographers and geographic information scientists in urban spatial planning and decision-making contexts. Focusing on the case study of a collaborative mapping project with the Wood Street Commons, an unhoused community in West Oakland, it contends that base maps create a cartographic terra infirma, fundamentally shaping the process of negotiations over urban space in ways that reinforce possessive logics and normalize property as central to the function of the city. Base maps do so by paradoxically absenting all people – with the effect of absenting the occupation of land by unhoused people, while shielding property owners from view while enacting their possession through infrastructure, parcel boundaries and land features. We argue this privileging inherent in the urban base map ultimately fuels a process of “unbecoming” ( Fraser, 2018 ) – a simultaneous invisibilizing and reproduction of spatial inequality – and in response, call for attention towards the politics of base maps from urban cartographers, planners, architects and spatial scientists alike.

‘It depends on where you were born…here in the North East, there’s not really many job opportunities compared to in the South’: young people’s perspectives on a North-South health divide and its drivers in England, UK

BackgroundImproving the public’s understanding of how regional and socioeconomic inequalities create and perpetuate inequalities in health, is argued to be necessary for building support for policies geared towards creating a more equal society. However, research exploring public perceptions of health inequalities, and how they are generated, is limited. This is particularly so for young people. Our study sought to explore young people’s lived experiences and understandings of health inequalities.MethodsWe carried out focus group discussions (n = 18) with 42 young people, aged 13–21, recruited from six youth organisations in England in 2021. The organisations were located in areas of high deprivation in South Yorkshire, the North East and London. Young people from each organisation took part in three interlinked focus group discussions designed to explore their (i) perceptions of factors impacting their health in their local area, (ii) understandings of health inequalities and (iii) priorities for change. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most discussions took place online (n = 15). However, with one group in the North East, we carried out discussions face-to-face (n = 3). Data were analysed thematically and we used NVivo-12 software to facilitate data management.ResultsYoung people from all groups demonstrated an awareness of a North-South divide in England, UK. They described how disparities in local economies and employment landscapes between the North and the South led to tangible differences in everyday living and working conditions. They clearly articulated how these differences ultimately led to inequalities in people’s health and wellbeing, such as linking poverty and employment precarity to chronic stress. Young people did not believe these inequalities were inevitable. They described the Conservative government as prioritising the South and thus perpetuating inequalities through uneven investment.ConclusionsOur study affords important insights into young people’s perceptions of how wider determinants can help explain the North-South health divide in England. It demonstrates young people’s contextualised understandings of the interplay between spatial, social and health inequalities. Our findings support calls for pro-equity policies to address the structural causes of regional divides in health. Further research, engaging young people in deliberative policy analysis, could build on this work.

Spatial inequities in access to medications for treatment of opioid use disorder highlight scarcity of methadone providers under counterfactual scenarios.

Access to treatment and medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) is essential in reducing opioid use and associated behavioral risks, such as syringe sharing among persons who inject drugs (PWID). Syringe sharing among PWID carries high risk of transmission of serious infections such as hepatitis C and HIV. MOUD resources, such as methadone provider clinics, however, are often unavailable to PWID due to barriers like long travel distance to the nearest methadone provider and the required frequency of clinic visits. The goal of this study is to examine the uncertainty in the effects of travel distance in initiating and continuing methadone treatment and how these interact with different spatial distributions of methadone providers to impact co-injection (syringe sharing) risks. A baseline scenario of spatial access was established using the existing locations of methadone providers in a geographical area of metropolitan Chicago, Illinois, USA. Next, different counterfactual scenarios redistributed the locations of methadone providers in this geographic area according to the densities of both the general adult population and according to the PWID population per zip code. We define different reasonable methadone access assumptions as the combinations of short, medium, and long travel distance preferences combined with three urban/suburban travel distance preference. Our modeling results show that when there is a low travel distance preference for accessing methadone providers, distributing providers near areas that have the greatest need (defined by density of PWID) is best at reducing syringe sharing behaviors. However, this strategy also decreases access across suburban locales, posing even greater difficulty in regions with fewer transit options and providers. As such, without an adequate number of providers to give equitable coverage across the region, spatial distribution cannot be optimized to provide equitable access to all PWID. Our study has important implications for increasing interest in methadone as a resurgent treatment for MOUD in the United States and for guiding policy toward improving access to MOUD among PWID.

Spatial inequalities and cities: A review

This special issue of Environment and Planning B focuses on Spatial Inequalities and Cities. As the world progresses to almost a fully urban state, locations, networks, and access shape the everyday lives lived in cities, alongside being the movers and shapers of the future of sustainable and equitable urbanization. This special issue brings together a set of peer-reviewerd papers spanning urban science, urban analytics, geographic information / spatial science, network science, and quantitative socio-economic-spatial analysis, to explore and examine how the morphological, structural and spatial form of cities is linked to the production, maintenance and exacerbation of socio-economic inequalities and injustices. The issue also presents a critical angle on data, methods, and their use, and on how novel data and methods can help shed light on new dimensions of spatial inequalities. This editorial presents a brief critical review of the field of urban spatial inequalities and a summary of the special issue.

How Does Regional Science Address Environmental Issues? A Bibliometric Analysis of Two Decades of Publications

Using bibliometric methods, this paper is aimed at providing an overview of Regional Science publications that address environmental issues. The analysis covers a corpus of 1145 articles that refer to the environment in their title, abstract or keywords and published in 18 journals between 1999 and 2020. Although these publications account for only 6 percent of the articles published in these journals over that period, their number gradually increased. To gain a clearer picture of the environmental issues addressed, we characterise them according to whether an integrative or topical approach is adopted and by their spatial dimensions. This analytical framework is first applied by searching for specific terms in their title, keywords and abstract. The results show that both approaches are equally effective; further, these articles address intraregional or interregional environmental issues more than global environmental issues. Second, we conduct a keyword co-occurrence analysis revealing four coherent thematic article groups treating environmental issues from the perspectives of amenities and migration, governance and policy, innovation and clusters, and land use and urban sprawl. More detailed analyses of each group allowed us to refine our understanding of how environmental issues were addressed. Finally, a cross-cutting view of the four thematic groups suggests that Regional Science approaches environmental issues through spatial disparities and inequalities, spatial interactions and interdependencies, and the spatial dimension of public action. The research perspectives in each of these areas are highlighted.

Spatial Accessibility and Uptake of Pediatric COVID-19 Vaccinations by Social Vulnerability.

Geographic accessibility predicts pediatric preventive care utilization, including vaccine uptake. However, spatial inequities in the pediatric coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination rollout remain underexplored. We assessed the spatial accessibility of vaccination sites and analyzed predictors of vaccine uptake. In this cross-sectional study of pediatric COVID-19 vaccinations from the US Vaccine Tracking System as of July 29, 2022, we described spatial accessibility by geocoding vaccination sites, measuring travel times from each Census tract population center to the nearest site, and weighting tracts by their population demographics to obtain nationally representative estimates. We used quasi-Poisson regressions to calculate incidence rate ratios, comparing vaccine uptake between counties with highest and lowest quartile Social Vulnerability Index scores: socioeconomic status (SES), household composition and disability (HCD), minority status and language (MSL), and housing type and transportation. We analyzed 15 233 956 doses administered across 27 526 sites. Rural, uninsured, white, and Native American populations experienced longer travel times to the nearest site than urban, insured, Hispanic, Black, and Asian American populations. Overall Social Vulnerability Index, SES, and HCD were associated with decreased vaccine uptake among children aged 6 months to 4 years (overall: incidence rate ratio 0.70 [95% confidence interval 0.60-0.81]; SES: 0.66 [0.58-0.75]; HCD: 0.38 [0.33-0.44]) and 5 years to 11 years (overall: 0.85 [0.77-0.95]; SES: 0.71 [0.65-0.78]; HCD: 0.67 [0.61-0.74]), whereas social vulnerability by MSL was associated with increased uptake (6 months-4 years: 5.16 [3.59-7.42]; 5 years-11 years: 1.73 [1.44-2.08]). Pediatric COVID-19 vaccine uptake and accessibility differed by race, rurality, and social vulnerability. National supply data, spatial accessibility measurement, and place-based vulnerability indices can be applied throughout public health resource allocation, surveillance, and research.

Crime against women in India: district-level risk estimation using the small area estimation approach.

The global prevalence of crimes against women has made it an enduring public health challenge that has persisted over time. The achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is intricately tied to the actions taken to prevent these crimes as their repercussions directly affect progress across various SDGs. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive examination of the prevalence of crimes against women across districts and states in India, analyzing changes from 2020 to 2022, and subsequently identifying associated factors. The study is an ecological analysis conducted across all districts of India using the data on crimes against women for the period 2020 and 2022 obtained from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of India. A small area estimation method was used to obtain district-level relative risks of crime against women for both periods. Hotspot analysis was carried out to identify the current hotspots and coldspots. Further spatial regression was used to identify the factors associated with crimes against women in the year 2022. The results indicated a rise in the reported crime against women cases between 2020 and 2022. The rate of crimes against women at the national level was found to be 57 in the year 2020, whereas, in 2022, it increased to 67. The highest crime rate in the year 2022 was found to be 145 in Delhi, while Nagaland had the lowest crime rate of 5. The relative risk of crime against women varied from 0.046 to 4.68 in 2020, while in 2022, it spanned from 0.02 to 6.10. Significant hotspots were found in parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Telangana, and Odisha. The results of the spatial error regression model showed that the sex ratio and the population density of the district have significant associations with the occurrence of crimes against women. The rise in the incidence of crime against women emphasizes the importance of tackling the spatial inequality in relative risk across Indian districts. By thoughtfully addressing this variation and conducting targeted studies in high-risk areas, we can enhance our understanding of the obstacles to implementing effective measures against violence targeting women.

Three facets of urban metabolism (case of Kazakhstan)

ABSTRACT The urbanisation growth causes problems related to the provision and consumption of resources, ecology, and social living conditions in cities. The purpose of the article is to study the dependence of metabolic factors and the level of urban conveniences on the urbanisation level and to justify the need to monitor these processes and improve the management of urban systems with the purpose to achieve sustainable development objectives. Three aspects of the problem of urban metabolism and sustainable development of cities are considered in the article. They are energy consumption by megacities, social aspects of metabolism and growth of megacities, problems of urban improvement. The increasing risks of negative impact of urban growth on the environment and living conditions has been proven. It is shown that the resettlement flow of village residents to cities, especially large ones, remains high despite the deterioration of the environmental situation in large cities and the lag in the urban infrastructure development from the population growth rate. The expediency to expand the context of the urban metabolism problem was noted, including the exchange of resources between urban and rural to reduce spatial inequality, and to increase the sustainability of urban and rural settlements.

Geographies of socio-economic inequality

Abstract Over many decades, academics, policymakers, and governments have been concerned with both the presence of inequalities and the impacts these can have on people when concentrated spatially in urban areas. This concern is especially related to the influence of spatial inequalities on individual outcomes in terms of health, education, work and income, and general well-being amongst other outcomes. In this commentary, we provide an overview of the literature on spatial inequalities and on contextual and neighbourhood effects. We address some of the main challenges in modelling contextual effects and provide evidence that no single study can definitively provide the answer to the question whether—and how much—spatial context effects are relevant for understanding individual outcomes. It is only when taken together that the rich body of research on spatial context effects shows convincingly that spatial context effects are relevant. The commentary ends with the presentation of the vicious circle of the segregation model and suggest some ways in which this vicious circle of spatial inequality and segregation can be broken.

Exploring the production of spatial inequality in dockless bicycle sharing in Shenzhen

There have been rising concerns over the unequal geographical distribution of bicycle sharing services in cities. Previous research on inequalities of urban bikeshare has often focused on quantitatively mapping inequalities with big data from travel records. It has thus been unable to examine the causes, reproduction mechanisms, and consequences of observed spatial inequalities in detail. Using the case of Shenzhen, a Chinese megacity with strong governmental control on mobility and a historical legacy of urban segregation, this study aims to achieve a nuanced understanding of the mechanism through which operators, regulators, and users of dockless bicycle sharing interact to produce and reproduce inequalities in accessing and using the service. To achieve this, this study adopts a mixed-method approach consisting of GIS mapping analysis, survey, and interviews with cyclists and experts. The result shows that both the use frequency and perceived accessibility of dockless bicycles are higher in wealthier and more central neighbourhoods. Moreover, strong governmental regulation in the form of a designated parking system, fleet quota distribution and point-based service evaluation have reproduced and enhanced spatial inequalities in dockless bicycle use and access. The findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating how preexisting urban infrastructure and certain regulatory arrangements interact to form a reproduction cycle of inequalities in accessing and using dockless bicycles that favours more central and well-off neighbourhoods at the expense of marginalized communities in Shenzhen.

Housing Practices of Albanian Immigrants in Athens: An “in-between” Socio-Spatial Condition

Immigrants’ access to housing is often the outcome of self-settlement practices within a context of limited social policies that often characterizes Southern European metropolises. Hence, immigrants are facing multiple constraints and remain vulnerable towards diverse socioeconomic fluctuations. This article focuses on the housing practices followed by Albanian immigrants, the largest immigrant group in Athens’s municipality, to examine how spatial inequalities are intertwined with ethnicity in the Greek capital. The objective is twofold: to discuss ethnic segregation on the micro-scale of Athenian central neighborhoods and examine how immigrants’ housing practices are being challenged within a rapidly changing socio-spatial context. The methodology follows a mixed approach, aiming at identifying differentiations and inequalities both on the macro- and micro-spatial scale. First, differentiations among Greeks, Albanians, and other third-country nationals in Athens (2011) are traced and compared, based on quantitative data. Second, for the purpose of highlighting micro-geographies in the city, this article presents an analysis of collected narratives of Albanian immigrants, through semi-structured interviews held in 2023. The main results indicate that the population under study finds itself in an “in-between” socio-spatial condition: an “in-between”, compared to the housing experiences of Greek households and other third-country nationals, that produces (and reproduces) segregation trends visible on the micro-scale. Moreover, this article attempts to highlight how the lack of housing policies put in peril the successful self-settlement practices of Albanian immigrants, in the current context of financialization of the Athenian housing market.

Assessing the Spatial Equity of Urban Park Green Space Layout from the Perspective of Resident Heterogeneity

Urban park green spaces (UPGS) are essential resources for improving the urban ecological environment and meeting residents’ recreational needs. However, during rapid urbanization, the layout of UPGS often exhibits spatial inequity, with significant differences in the resources enjoyed by resident groups with different socioeconomic attributes. Accurately assessing the spatial equity of the UPGS layout (the equal accessibility of UPGS) is crucial for optimizing resource allocation and promoting social equity. This study takes the main urban area of Nanjing as an example and utilizes location-based service (LBS) data and multi-source geographic data to conduct an in-depth characterization of residents’ socioeconomic attributes, recreational behaviors, and park green space layout at the street scale. By constructing indicators of resident heterogeneity and UPGS supply–demand matching degree, it reveals the differences in park green space accessibility among different social groups and locations and explores the correlation between resident heterogeneity and UPGS spatial equity. The study finds that the layout of UPGS in the main urban area of Nanjing exhibits significant spatial inequity, with generally poor accessibility to park green spaces in the central urban area and low-income communities. The higher degree of diversification of residents’ socioeconomic attributes leads to a lower level of UPGS spatial equity in their streets. The results of the big data analysis verify the significant impact of resident heterogeneity on the equity of park green space layout. This study reveals the spatial equity issues of UPGS layout from the perspective of resident heterogeneity, providing new ideas and evidence for optimizing the allocation of park green space resources. Future UPGS planning should pay more attention to the diversity of residents’ recreational needs, focus on improving the accessibility of park green spaces in central urban areas and low-income communities, and balance the interests and demands of different stakeholders through public participation mechanisms.

An Examination of Spatial Inequalities in Access to WASH Services in Pakistan

An Examination of Spatial Inequalities in Access to WASH Services in Pakistan

Regional Imbalances In The Levels of Socio-Economic Development In Kollegal Taluk Chamarajanagar District

Regional disparities are common in almost all nations globally inattentive of whether being under-developed, developing, or developed. With the new conversion of target towards human development, the existence of inequalities on rural development is one of the primary issues faced by developing countries. It attempted to examine the spatial inequalities in the rural amenities in Kollegal taluk, Chamarajanagar district. The level of development is estimated separately for education, health, economic, and communication sectors and the taluk is classified into three categories according to the values of the Aggregate weightage scores. An attempt has been made to analyze the level of regional development among different villages in Kollegal. According to the regional disparity, the development index shows that some regions are far more systematically developed in the center of the taluk headquarters. The result shows that vast disparities in the level of regional overall development lie among various villages of Kollegal. The extent of the infrastructure services sector's development has been shown statistically and favorably related to overall socio-economic development, suggesting that the two sectors' development and expansion have been advancing concurrently throughout the country. The result shows that merely a few villages have the highest scores in overall development.

‘If I tell them that I live near the neighborhood, they’re like, oh are you poor?’ Differences in young people’s reactions to territorial stigma in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland

ABSTRACT Geographers have long been interested in how place is a crucial element of exclusion in society. In this study, we examine the reactions to neighborhood stigma of two groups of young people whose lives are intertwined with a stigmatized neighborhood at different levels. The first group lives, goes to school and spends leisure time in the neighborhoods and the second group goes to school there. Theoretically, we draw on Wacquant's concept of territorial stigmatization and Pryor and Reeder's taxonomy of different types of stigma: public stigma, self-stigma, and stigma by association. Our ethnographic data comprise interviews with young people (aged 13–15) and daily observations from two schools located in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Helsinki metropolitan area in Finland. We found three differences in stigma reactions between the two groups of young people, which were intertwined with spatial and social inequalities. The first difference arose from the uneven ways in which they struggled with neighborhood stigma. The second difference related to disengagement from the source of stigma, by detachment either from certain places or from the entire neighborhood. The third difference emerged in the different ways in which they used the neighborhood normalization strategy, to indicate neighborhood similarities or differences.

Reshaping essential public spaces and services: towards socio-spatial justice in a post-pandemic era

In our last viewpoint article, we illustrated the hidden stories of immigrant suburbs during the COVID-19 pandemic and challenges facing racialised communities. This article delves deeper into intensified social and spatial inequalities by interrogating: what are the ‘essential’ public spaces, places and services that must remain accessible to benefit the settlement, well-being and inclusion of marginalised, racialised, immigrant populations? What engagement approaches effectively include racialised minority groups’ voices in decisions about the future of public space and (sub)urban systems? We emphasise the utility of a socio-spatial justice framework in reimagining and reconfiguring essential public spaces and associated services in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using examples from the Canadian context (i.e. community land trusts, cultural district plans, cultural festivals and food systems), we unpack pillars of distributional, procedural and recognitional justice to interrogate the status quo and illuminate pathways to more inclusive, fair and accessible communities. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Patterns and sources of spatial inequity in freight crashes: An application of decomposition analysis

Despite considerable increases in road freight traffic and associated crashes over the past decade, our understanding of their spatial distribution remains limited. This is concerning because freight vehicle crashes often lead to fatal and severe injuries. This study focuses on Seoul, South Korea and contributes to the literature by investigating the patterns and sources of spatial inequity in freight crashes. Specifically, it examines whether socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods experience a higher concentration of freight crashes. Using the Gelbach’s decomposition technique, this study also aims to identify the factors contributing to differences in freight crashes between disadvantaged and less-disadvantaged neighborhoods and quantify their relative contributions. The regression results show that severe freight crashes are more prevalent in disadvantaged neighborhoods before adjusting for other factors—a pattern not observed in non-severe crashes. The decomposition analysis reveals that the observed disparities in severe freight crashes between disadvantaged and less-disadvantaged neighborhoods are fully explained by differences in several neighborhood characteristics, including local road density, truck traffic volume density, proximity to logistics terminals, and off-road bicycle lane density, between neighborhood types. Interestingly, differences in built environment characteristics between neighborhood types not only fail to explain but instead counteract the disparities in severe freight crashes. The findings of this study suggest detailed policy implications for mitigating freight crash occurrences and addressing related spatial inequities.

Who can access what? Uncovering urban inequality in access to service for senior citizens

The scarcity or lack of access to essential services at the local and neighbourhood levels in cities can result in significant spatial inequalities, as some areas and their residents can deal with disadvantages and a lower quality of daily life. In particular, the spatial distribution and the variety of amenities at the local scale represent an important feature of the liveliness of places. The local availability and access to essential services are particularly relevant for some demographic groups experiencing limited mobility or mobility poverty, such as older adults living in cities, and spatial disparities have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted severe difficulties in accessing essential services. This work explores the issue focussing on the following question: who can access what depending on where they live in cities? Using Machine Learning and Spatial Autocorrelation applied to different data sources for spatial information on the location of urban amenities and Internet access, this work aims to identify the most underserved places in terms of the variety of available amenities and access to quality broadband in three European capital cities. A comparison to urban areas where high percentages of older adults reside makes it possible to identify where residents can locally access several essential services (green spaces, health care, and local shopping) and where this need cannot be satisfied because of a lack in the amenity variety available at walking distance to their home. The combination of underserved areas with a high concentration of senior residents identifies left-behind areas in these cities, where interventions on inequalities are most needed. Results can inform policies aiming at favouring fair access to services at the local scale, possibly including slow and active mobility modes, and in general to develop comprehensive and sustainable planning strategies for cities, leaving no place and no person behind.

Information technology, market congestion, and economic geography

I investigate the impact of economic integration, in terms of trade costs and information technology, on the interregional location patterns of retail firms by introducing three features into a new economic geography model: individuals consume only a restricted number of varieties; firms compete for customer acquisition; and the advancement of information technology enables consumers to easily perceive and buy products sold by firms in distant regions. I consider two possibilities regarding competition for attention: relative competition, in which a firm can attract more consumers by advertising more than the average level, and absolute competition, in which each firm competes with another to enhance the share of its advertisement in the market. I show that consumption variety is richer in the agglomerated region, but spatial consumption inequality shrinks as information technology develops. A reduction in trade costs may cause the redispersion of economic activities under sufficiently low trade costs only in the case of absolute competition. This is more likely when competition for attention is fierce and information technology is not fully developed. The results not only support the complementarity between information technology and cities but also provide a new insight that competition among firms is an important factor governing the impact of information technology on economic geography.

Spatial accessibility and inequality analysis of rabies-exposed patients to rabies post-exposure prophylaxis clinics in Guangzhou City, China

BackgroundThe incidence of rabies exposure is high and increasing in China, leading to an urgent demand of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) clinics for the injured. However, the spatial accessibility and inequality of rabies-exposed patients to rabies PEP clinics is less known in China.MethodsBased on rabies exposure data, PEP clinic data, and resident travel origin-destination (OD) matrix data in Guangzhou City, China, we first described the incidence of rabies exposure in Guangzhou from 2020 to 2022. Then, the Gaussian two-step floating catchment area method (2SFCA) was used to analyze the spatial accessibility of rabies-exposed patients to rabies PEP clinics in Guangzhou, and the Gini coefficient and Moran’s I statistics were utilized to evaluate the inequality and clustering of accessibility scores.ResultsFrom 2020 to 2022, a total of 524,160 cases of rabies exposure were reported in Guangzhou, and the incidence showed a significant increasing trend, with an average annual incidence of 932.0/100,000. Spatial accessibility analysis revealed that the overall spatial accessibility scores for three scenarios (threshold of driving duration [d0] = 30 min, 45 min, and 60 min) were 0.30 (95% CI: 0.07, 0.87), 0.28 (95% CI: 0.11, 0.53) and 0.28 (95% CI: 0.14, 0.44), respectively. Conghua, Huangpu, Zengcheng and Nansha districts had the higher accessibility scores, while Haizhu, Liwan, and Yuexiu districts exhibited lower spatial accessibility scores. The Gini coefficient and Moran’s I statistics showed that there were certain inequality and clustering in the accessibility to rabies PEP clinics in Guangzhou.ConclusionsThis study clarifies the heterogeneity of spatial accessibility to rabies PEP clinics, and provide valuable insights for resource allocation to achieve the WHO target of zero human dog-mediated rabies deaths by 2030.