Research Paper
Accessing green space in Melbourne: Measuring inequity and household mobility

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.104004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The distribution of green space within Melbourne is skewed towards wealthier areas.

  • Population mobility is reinforcing inequality in access to green space over time.

  • Urban planning has not succeeded in countering urban inequality trends.

Abstract

Economically disadvantaged communities living in neighborhoods with low access to green space are known to experience a heightened burden of health issues, leading to intergenerational well-being problems. However, relatively little is known about the extents and causes of green space inequalities among different social communities. To explore this in the metropolitan Melbourne area, we use the 2016 Census data of equivalised household income and calculate local indicators of spatial association (LISA) between low-income proportion and green space access at a suburb level. We show that the distribution of green space in Melbourne favors more affluent communities, meaning that there are lower concentrations of low-income households in greener areas. The Mann–Whitney U statistics applied to LISA clusters also indicates statistically significant inequity in access to green space for low-income communities. Secondly, the paper shows that low-income households’ relocation and provision of human-modified green space exacerbate inequality in green space access over time. Mobility patterns show the movement of low-income people from high-green areas to low-green areas over time. The spatial analysis of green space types reveals that the location of human-modified green spaces has a significant correlation with (non-randomly distributed) natural green spaces.

Introduction

Urbanization is, in many countries, accompanied by rising inequality (Stilwell and Hardwick, 1973, Glaeser et al., 2009). Within cities, rising socio-spatial inequality manifests itself in the ability of some residents to outcompete other residents for the locations that provide access to key economic, physical, and social infrastructure (Soja, 2009). Inequality also manifests in the concentration of poorer health and a series of concentrated social problems (e.g., higher levels of mental illnesses, drug consumption, obesity, violence and anti-social behaviors, and lower trust) (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). While many of the processes that contribute to shaping trends in inequality (e.g., wage bargaining, taxation, trade) typically are not determined at the city level, the manifestations of inequality are local and often spatially concentrated (Glaeser et al., 2009).

One way for cities to deal with the manifestations of inequality is through the provision of key social infrastructure, such as educational facilities of school grounds and sports ovals or, the focus of this paper, access to green space. Green spaces1 are areas within urban environments that are devoted to nature and can be used as spaces for play, recreation, and socialization (e.g., forest canopy, urban wetlands, parks, public gardens, playing fields, children’s play areas, bushland and linear reserves, national parks, state forests, and conservation reserves) (Byrne and Sipe, 2010, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, 2012). A number of studies show that green space can provide several health-related benefits. Green space can promote physical activity and health through reducing obesity (Putrik et al., 2015), diabetes (Yang et al., 2019), and cardiovascular and CMR (cardiometabolic risk) problems (Daniel et al., 2019). Green space can also increase mental and psychological well-being through different mechanisms (e.g., relieving stress (Wang, Rodiek, Wu, Chen, & Li, 2016); reducing concentration problems (Bodin, Björk, Ardö, & Albin, 2015); significant improvement in self-esteem, total mood disturbance, and cognitive functioning (Schutte et al., 2017, Sandifer et al., 2015, Houlden et al., 2018). In addition, green space can improve the sense of place, neighborhood satisfaction, social cohesion and social capital, and reduce crime and incivilities, which are all related to social determinants of health (Jennings, Larson, & Yun, 2016). The provision of green space can, therefore, potentially counteract some of the health-related manifestations of inequality (Giles-Corti et al., 2005, Astell-Burt et al., 2014, Astell-Burt and Feng, 2019).

Notwithstanding a large body of literature on health benefits and socio-economic disparities in access to green space, measurement and dynamic gaps in our understanding remain. First, green space itself varies in quality and quantity. The proximity or share of green space in a locality is, therefore, an insufficient indicator of the access-health/social benefits dimension. For instance, the experience of both quality and quantity is reduced when space becomes congested (Boone, Buckley, Grove, & Sister, 2009). Standard measures of access to green space only partially capture these important access dimensions and, consequently, our understanding of access to green space and social justice/health outcomes.

Second, the existing evidence shows that the distribution of green space also is determined by local income and political-economy determinants (Byrne et al., 2009, Lineberry, 1977). For instance, Evangelio et al., 2019, Kong et al., 2007 show that dwellings close to green spaces often trade at a price premium. As a result, poorer access to green space for low-income households could also arise out of lower purchasing power (Astell-Burt et al., 2014). Other causes of green space inequality are, however, less well-understood or researched. This includes historical land use and park development, socio-political processes, ethno-racial formations, evolving ideas about leisure, and housing market dynamics (Meeker, 1973, Astell-Burt et al., 2014, Heynen et al., 2006, Byrne and Wolch, 2009). Most of these studies focus on spatial distribution (Talen and Anselin, 1998, Rigolon, 2016, Gibson et al., 2019). Only a few studies address the historical and contemporary social-political processes that have caused the observed patterns (e.g. Heynen et al., 2006, Boone et al., 2009, Jennings et al., 2017), and there is a gap in our knowledge on the role of population mobility and residential relocation in shaping urban spatial patterns over time.

In this paper, we therefore ask: First, how does access to different types of green space vary for low-income households in Melbourne, Australia? Unlike previous studies, we utilize a measure of green space that incorporates all alternative green space locations weighted by distance and congestion (users), rather than proximity or share of the locality. Second, how does low-income household relocation within metropolitan Melbourne affect access to green space over time? This introduces a dynamic element in our understanding of access to green space, urban structures, and planning. Following Mitchell et al., 1999, Boone et al., 2009, Jennings et al., 2017, we argue that the study of inequalities must go beyond the distribution of green space and try to address the potential causes and social drivers that generate the inequities.

We do this by examining equity in access to green space, both human-modified and natural, in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia, using the LISA clusters. A local indicator of spatial association (LISA) is a statistical measure indicating the extent of significant spatial clustering of similar values around each spatial unit (Anselin, 1995). The sum of LISAs for all spatial units is then proportional to a global indicator of spatial association.

Our measure of access to green space utilizes a gravity approach that includes quantity and potential congestion dimensions of green space. LISA clusters are used to empirically test for socio-economic inequity in access to green space. We then examine changes in the distribution of low-income households relative to green space access. Like many cities, Melbourne’s metropolitan planning aims to enhance neighborhood liveability through new urbanism measures, including improving access to green space. If planning for green space is achieving its objectives, then lower-income households’ access to green space should improve (in the case of access deficit) or remain unchanged (in the case of initial equity in access). If it turns out that access to green space worsens over time, then the planning and implementation of green infrastructure are not countering inequity and urban inequality.

The results of this study extend our understanding of the extent and potential causes of metropolitan inequity in access to green space, including the role of residential relocation. Furthermore, this study sheds light on how policy-making can intervene in this process. The results have implications for municipal decision-making in service and resource allocations and distribution in Australian and global cities. We also make a methodological contribution by employing a gravity-based access to green space measure that, unlike conventional measurement approaches, considers all green spaces that can be accessed from a locality.

The remainder of the article is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews key concepts and existing literature. Section 3 briefly introduces the study area and study variables. Furthermore, in this section, we set out the local indicators of spatial association (LISA) model to analyze inequity in access to green space. Results are presented and discussed in Sections 4 Results, 5 Discussion, respectively. Finally, we conclude and draw out policy implications in Section 6.

Section snippets

Inequitable green access, causes, and consequences

As noted in the introduction, there is an extensive body of literature documenting the benefits of green spaces. There is also a longer tradition of emphasizing health and social benefits in green space provision. The public park movement of the Victorian era initially emphasized health-related benefits for overcrowded and polluted industrial cities, but also places of “betterment” and civic pride (Cranz et al., 1982, Young, 1996). The importance of green space remains critical today due to

Study area and data source

Our area of study is metropolitan Melbourne. Compared with many of its national and international peers, Melbourne’s average population growth has been high (more than 2.5% per annum over 2011–2018) (Stanley, 2019). Over the past 25 years, Melbourne property price growth exceeded that of both Sydney and Brisbane, the other most populous cities in Australia (CoreLogic, 2018). Combined, population and house price growth are changing the margins of Melbourne, creating an environment shown

Results

In this section, we first present a summary of the research key variables and then report the results for the association between the proportion of low-income households and green spaces access. Finally, we review the change in access to green space as a result of household mobility and analyze the history of park development because both are potential causes of green space access inequalities.

Table 1 summarises descriptive statistics for key variables. Low-income households comprise, on

Discussion

A number of studies indicate that urban inequality is increasing (e.g., Casey et al., 2017, Lin et al., 2015). Many disadvantaged groups, including low-income households, where the social return to green space access may be particularly high, have the poorest access to green space. Despite the importance of this issue, little is known about how access to different types of green space varies for low-income households in Melbourne, Australia, and what role population mobility may play in urban

Conclusion

This paper focuses on gauging and investigating the possible causes of the inequality in access to green space in metropolitan Melbourne. In this regard, we investigate the extent of the green space inequality for low-income households using green space indices built in a novel gravity model. We then seek the causes of the inequalities in the factors of household mobility as well as green space planning. The results indicate that access to green space is skewed towards more affluent

Funding

The first author wishes to thank Swinburne University of Technology for Swinburne University postgraduate research awards – SUPRA – funding that was instrumental in facilitating this research.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Farahnaz Sharifi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Visualization. Andi Nygaard: Writing - original draft, Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - review & editing. Wendy M. Stone: Writing - review & editing. Iris Levin: Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgment

This research would not have been possible without data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in addition to, the Parks and Open Space Map obtained from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. This paper has been written in a writing group supervised by Professor Sandy Gifford, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology. The authors appreciate the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the previous version of the article.

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