10 thoughts on “Sustainable Chicago: Are Green Amenities Equitable by Chris Lancaster”
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Geospatial Analysis: Multidisciplinary Applications
A virtual conference showcasing final student e-projects in the course Introduction to GIS and Remote Sensing, Vanderbilt University
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Awesome presentation, Chris! Environmental justice is so important and I’m so glad more people are becoming aware of how vital it is. I was wondering- have recent park additions/green space additions been more evenly distributed around the city?
Thank you, Zahra. That is a great question, but the database I used does not note when any particular park was founded. After seeing some of the presentations yesterday that used time so well and tracked attributes that way, I can certainly see how a time-series of this same data (both poverty-levels and greenspaces) might show some interesting trends. Unfortunately though, I do not know (without some additional research) which of the 650+ parks in Chicago are more recent additions.
Great job and a topic salient to much of the U.S., including Nashville! Your methods mention the use of city parks and green spaces and I was just curious to know, what specific greenspaces (urban farms, community gardens, green roofs, etc.) are used in your study? I would also be curious to see how land value in parts of Chicago has (or has not) changed due to phenomena like eco-gentrification.
Thank you Hannah. The straight answer is city/county parks and greenways. While I did find a database of neighborhood gardens, I decided not to include those as it appeared they were not managed or handled by the city; it was just a listing of where they were located and thus, in considering distributive justice their placement would not have been in the jurisdiction of the governing bodies of Chicago. I also had access to databases containing green building initiatives, but both due to time constraints and project management and for the same reason, real estate projects are based on economic decisions of private entities in most cases, not governmental decisions, I did not include them. I also looked at state forests but they did not fall into the scope of the city of Chicago. I am sure that gentrification has affected Chicago, like most major cities, but I did not look into that phenomenon per se.
Hi Chris,
Really interesting information presented on your poster! As an advocate of equitable, sustainable development, I am fascinated by the maps produced and your interpretation of results. I am, however, unfamiliar with the city of Chicago. As someone who seems to know the city well, would you make any particular recommendations for urban planners in an attempt to distribute green development moving forward?
Thank you Brooke. To be honest, I think this study only touches the surface and much more would need to be looked at before I would dare make recommendations. I think the ease at which certain “dead zones” can be viewed on Figure 2, would lend those in charge to take a closer look at these areas and determine if greenspaces are needed in this area. However, for example, as I did not look at land use, it is possible that some of those areas are nearly entirely industrial; they would still be covered as a census tract and the data would show a poverty level. What I discovered really, is that this initial study just led me to more questions and certainly not yet to any place where I would have answers for decision-makers. Perhaps as an anathema to this course, I would also always recommend that urban planners ask the residents what they want or need in their neighborhood – talk to people. Use the data, of course, but still make sure they are connecting with the citizens they are trying to help.
This is a really interesting project. I read a bit about Chicago’s greenspace initiatives in one of my sustainability classes. As you may have found in your background research, Chicago was sued by the Justice Dept. in the 1980s for failing to provide equal access to park space, and the city has publicly made it a goal to increase equitable access since then. This spatial analysis implies that the city still has a long way to go.
Thanks Hannah, I thought it might be worth looking at. To be completely upfront and as I mentioned, my data does not show a significant difference in the zones with respect to park area per person (the huge variance I feel was a factor) only a trend. The visual seems to suggest that equitable access is still an issue and that “dead zones” exist and out of nearly 700 parks in Chicago only 29 are in the highest poverty zones, but if I am honest, much more detailed analysis needs to be done to tease out what exactly the inequities are.
Hello Chris,
This project is wonderful, and unfortunately, it is telling that I am not surprised at the disparity between northern Chicago and the south and west areas. The notion of waterfront parks is great for tourism, and really is a wonderful idea in general for preserving beauty, but raises problems regarding equal access that your project mentions. When Chicago spent more than $450 million on Millenium Park (which is wonderful), it largely only served the wealthier folks and businesses downtown, but also half of the one-kilometer buffer zone extends over Lake Michigan. Regardless, your maps are wonderful and well presented, and the poster overall looks great.
Concerning the one-kilometer buffer zone, I have two questions. Why specifically did you choose a one-kilometer buffer zone? Secondly, does your buffer zone utilize a travel network justification? Concerning the development of parks, does it seem more logical to you to have smaller neighborhood parks that cover larger areas and are more cost-effective while less-grand and open to mass public use, or are large parks better in granting equitable access? I ask because cities have a bad habit of neglecting smaller parks, particularly in lower-income neighborhoods, making them difficult or unsafe to use. Overall, an exciting project with great execution!
Good work, Chris–and in this case I don’t think you even need to run tests for significance, since you are using census-level (i.e. population level) data, not a sample. In other words, you have 100% of parks and 100% of people accounted for, so whatever differences you see in the data are “real”, and not a result of a random process from sampling within a larger population. So in that sense, your results are what they are, which strengthens the underlying empirical basis for your argument about disparities in access to park space by socioeconomic status. Your study shows that in the summary statistics themselves. Good going. I wonder what the distribution of LEEDS buildings would look like in comparison to SES or race in the census data too. Michael Brown, anthropologist and director of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, has an interesting article on the LEEDS program in American Anthropologist (journal). Check that one out.