An assessment of urban park access in Shanghai – Implications for the social equity in urban China

Urban planning regulations could counteract some inequalities faced by marginalized groupsStudies have shown that green space in many cities is not distributed equitably and that people with lower incomes tend to have more limited access to nearby green space than other people. This study investigated if the same was true of Chinese cities.

A rapidly-increasing gap between the rich and the poor is a growing concern in China. This inequality between social groups is evident in residential segregation in the cities. High-income families tend to own homes in privately-serviced neighborhoods. Disadvantaged groups, on the other hand, tend to live in rented properties, often in older and poorly-maintained parts of the city. This study, based on an environmental justice framework, explores whether urban parks are distributed equally across different social groups. A health-related concern is that the lack of access to green space may lower people’s life expectancy as well as their mental and physical health.

Shanghai was chosen as the cite of this case study because the rise of social inequality is especially dramatic in this city. Data about people living in the city was collected from several primary sources including census data and local socioeconomic information. Data about urban park locations was obtained from the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau and street network information from the Municipal Bureau of Planning.

Findings indicated that low-income social groups in Shanghai are not disadvantaged in terms of access to public parks. In fact, marginalized groups in Shanghai have better access to parks than the general population. The authors point to urban planning as an explanation for this surprising result. Shanghai’s municipality green space planning strategy emphasizes an even distribution of urban green space. Thus, while low-income groups tend to be more susceptible to unequal treatment, planning regulations can balance out some of the institutional and market inequalities. The authors call on urban planners to pay special attention to the needs of marginalized groups in planning healthy cities.