Abstract
Social equity is a key component of sustainable development. The environmental justice movement recognizes the challenges faced by low-income and racially/ethnically diverse communities. As an amenity that can potentially support the quality of the environmental, social, and health of cities, urban green spaces have also been at the forefront of modern discussions on environmental justice. Specifically, inequitable access to urban green spaces often overlaps race/ethnicity and various measures for socioeconomic status in ways that prompt environmental injustice concerns. Such inequities can contribute to reduced access to ecosystem services from green spaces for marginalized groups and to increased health disparities. In this chapter, we provide a historical context to this environmental justice challenge and highlight key findings from the academic literature and recommendations for future work in this area.
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Jennings, V., Browning, M.H.E.M., Rigolon, A. (2019). Urban Green Space at the Nexus of Environmental Justice and Health Equity. In: Urban Green Spaces. SpringerBriefs in Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10469-6_4
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