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Urban environmental stewardship and changes in vegetative cover and building footprint in New York City neighborhoods (2000–2010)

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Abstract

This study explores the connections between vegetation cover change, environmental stewardship, and building footprint change in New York City neighborhoods from the years 2000 to 2010. We use a mixed-methods multidisciplinary approach to analyze spatially explicit social and ecological data. Most neighborhoods lost vegetation during the study period. Neighborhoods that gained vegetation tended to have, on average, more stewardship groups. We contextualize the ways in which stewardship groups lead to the observed decadal- and neighborhood-scale changes in urban vegetation cover. This multidisciplinary synthesis combines the strengths of quantitative data to identify patterns, and qualitative data to understand process. While we recognize the complexity of cities and the potential confounding factors, this exploratory analysis uses sound theory and data from a mixed methodological approach to show the role of urban environmental stewardship in affecting the New York City landscape.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation Urban Long Term Research Area Exploratory (ULTRA-Ex) grant DEB-0948451, the US Forest Service Northern Research Station, the Libby Fund Enhancement Award from Clark University, and the Carpenter-Sperry Award. We also thank Walter Rosenbaum, Jessie Braden (Pratt Institute for Community Development), James Connolly (Northeastern University), and our anonymous reviewers for helpful input.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA, 01610-1477, USA

    Dexter H. Locke

  2. Forestry, Horticulture, & Natural Resources, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, 1234 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10029, USA

    Kristen L. King

  3. USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, NYC Urban Field Station, 431 Walter Reed Road, Fort Totten Park, Bayside, NY, 11360, USA

    Erika S. Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell & Nancy F. Sonti

  4. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, 10964-8000, USA

    Christopher Small

  5. Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, 2112 Art-Sociology, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Dana R. Fisher

  6. Forestry, Horticulture & Natural Resources, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, Olmsted Center, Flushing Meadow Corona Park, Flushing, New York, 11368, USA

    Jacqueline W. T. Lu

Authors
  1. Dexter H. Locke
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  2. Kristen L. King
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  3. Erika S. Svendsen
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  4. Lindsay K. Campbell
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  5. Christopher Small
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  6. Nancy F. Sonti
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  7. Dana R. Fisher
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  8. Jacqueline W. T. Lu
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Correspondence to Dexter H. Locke.

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Locke, D.H., King, K.L., Svendsen, E.S. et al. Urban environmental stewardship and changes in vegetative cover and building footprint in New York City neighborhoods (2000–2010). J Environ Stud Sci 4, 250–262 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-014-0176-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-014-0176-x

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