This study looked at the relationship between access to parks and green spaces with percentages of black, Hispanic, and low-income residents across rural and urban areas throughout the US. The authors point out that local studies have inconsistently demonstrated a relationship between lower socioeconomic status and high minority population and lack of green space or parks, but that none have yet looked at the issue from a national perspective or across the rural-urban spectrum. They hypothesized that they would find less access to planned parks and vegetated green spaces, both of which provide important health benefits, in poor neighborhoods or in areas with concentrations of minority populations.
Researchers chose to look at two different measures—spatial access to parks measured in GIS by population-weighted distance to the closest seven parks and access to green space as a percentage of vegetated land within a given census tract. Linear regression models were run to examine the correlation between these measures and socio-demographic census data on race and income.
Contrary to researchers' expectations, urban census tracts with higher rates of poverty and higher concentrations of blacks and Hispanics were found to actually be closer to parks. In rural areas, however, poorer areas did have less access to parks. At the same time, results from the study showed that in urban areas, higher poverty and populations of blacks and Hispanics were in fact associated with less access to green space (as opposed to parks). On the other hand, in rural areas, higher poverty was associated with more access to greenspace, a finding that is surprising given that agricultural land was eliminated from greenspace measures.
These findings suggest that policies should be focused on improving or upgrading existing park spaces in urban areas, while in poor, rural areas more parks should be provided to make up for their absence in poor areas where obesity is rampant. In addition, the findings suggest that policy should focus on providing more green spaces and enhancing greenness in poor urban areas, and on increasing the use of available green space in poor rural contexts. The authors are careful to point out that the shorter distance to local parks associated with urban areas of higher poverty and higher concentration of communities of color only refers to spatial access, which is not the same as “social access”—which refers to sociodemographic features such as safety, traffic, and walkability that may directly affect park utilization.
Research Partner