Assessing inequalities in access to the city’s green and blue spaces through the experiences of its residents

Tracey Skillington; Johanna Marie Kirsch; Tracey Skillington; Johanna Marie Kirsch

doi:10.3934/urs.2024014

Urban Resilience and Sustainability

2024, Volume 2, Issue 3: 272-288. doi: 10.3934/urs.2024014

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Research article

Assessing inequalities in access to the city’s green and blue spaces through the experiences of its residents

Tracey Skillington ^,,
Johanna Marie Kirsch ^,

Department of Sociology and Criminology, University College Cork, O’Donovan’s Road, Cork, T12 DT02, Ireland

Received: 17 April 2024 Revised: 12 August 2024 Accepted: 03 September 2024 Published: 14 September 2024

We report on the findings of a qualitative research study exploring the benefits to mental, physical, and social well-being of regular interaction with the city’s green and blue spaces using a walking interview method to gauge the views of fifty frequent visitors to the city’s parks. This was followed by a second phase of research consisting of four focus groups exploring the experiences of those whose access to the city’s green and blue spaces is restricted, noting the effects of these limitations on their general well-being. Despite government-backed urban sustainable redesign initiatives to promote greater access to the city’s biodiversity, its elderly, disabled, and poorer socio-economic communities continue to encounter restrictions regarding their access to its green and blue spaces. By highlighting these issues, our aim is to show how a partial membership of the city’s sustainable development plan is enacted (i.e., a simultaneous inclusion of all community members rhetorically and an exclusion of the needs of many in practice) and reinforced in ways that reproduce socially embedded patterns of inequality. It calls for a more sociologically grounded analysis of the persistence of such inequalities as an important appendage to current discourse on the restorative benefits of the ‘15-minute city’ and as a corrective to current public participation measures that fail to incorporate lived experiences of unequal access to the city’s nature. It proposes a framework that addresses more effectively the distributive, recognition, and procedural dimensions of inclusive, sustainable city living.
- sustainable development,
- green and blue spaces,
- restorative benefits,
- the 15-minute city,
- unequal access
Citation: Tracey Skillington, Johanna Marie Kirsch. Assessing inequalities in access to the city’s green and blue spaces through the experiences of its residents[J]. Urban Resilience and Sustainability, 2024, 2(3): 272-288. doi: 10.3934/urs.2024014

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Abstract

We report on the findings of a qualitative research study exploring the benefits to mental, physical, and social well-being of regular interaction with the city’s green and blue spaces using a walking interview method to gauge the views of fifty frequent visitors to the city’s parks. This was followed by a second phase of research consisting of four focus groups exploring the experiences of those whose access to the city’s green and blue spaces is restricted, noting the effects of these limitations on their general well-being. Despite government-backed urban sustainable redesign initiatives to promote greater access to the city’s biodiversity, its elderly, disabled, and poorer socio-economic communities continue to encounter restrictions regarding their access to its green and blue spaces. By highlighting these issues, our aim is to show how a partial membership of the city’s sustainable development plan is enacted (i.e., a simultaneous inclusion of all community members rhetorically and an exclusion of the needs of many in practice) and reinforced in ways that reproduce socially embedded patterns of inequality. It calls for a more sociologically grounded analysis of the persistence of such inequalities as an important appendage to current discourse on the restorative benefits of the ‘15-minute city’ and as a corrective to current public participation measures that fail to incorporate lived experiences of unequal access to the city’s nature. It proposes a framework that addresses more effectively the distributive, recognition, and procedural dimensions of inclusive, sustainable city living.

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