Invited Perspective: Nature Is Unfairly Distributed in the United States—But That’s Only Part of the Global Green Equity Story

As we experience increased impacts of climate change and urbanization, the many benefits to health and well-being provided by green and blue spaces are becoming more important,^1,2 and research has shown these health benefits to be particularly strong for lower-income populations.^3,4 Given these benefits, we have seen increased societal concern about the inequitable distribution of urban green and blue spaces. Researchers have responded with studies on this topic in multiple jurisdictions, analyzing whether low-income, less-educated, or racialized—that is, those who have been marginalized owing to the societal assignment of a specific racial identity—populations are less likely to have access to urban green^5–7 and blue⁸ spaces. In general, we now know that populations with higher incomes and more education have better access to green and blue spaces, especially in cities,^5,7,9 whereas associations between greenness and racialization are variable.¹⁰

Klompmaker et al.¹¹ contribute to this growing body of evidence with an analysis of the distributional equity of natural environments in all census tracts in the contiguous United States. The authors found that census tracts with higher socioeconomic status had greater access to nature, as measured by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), NatureScore, park cover, and presence of blue space. U.S. Census tracts with larger percentages of White residents and smaller percentages of Hispanic residents had lower NDVI and NatureScore values, whereas some urban tracts showed weak positive associations between racialization and natural elements. As one of the most extensive analyses of distributional green and blue equity in the United States to date, this research confirms that patterns observed in previous studies extend across the country.

Much of the research on this topic has been produced in the United States, which also has had a large influence on environmental justice theory in the past decades.^12,13 However, as distributional green equity analyses have emerged in other jurisdictions, the patterns seen in U.S. research are not as prevalent elsewhere.¹⁴ These findings may indicate that environmental inequities are not as stark outside of the United States. Alternatively, they may highlight an important gap in environmental justice theory that also has been raised by global South scholars¹⁵; namely, that theory derived from patterns of injustice observed in the United States may not be applicable outside of that country, and researchers attempting to apply U.S.-based theory to non-U.S. locations may not even be asking the right questions.

For example, the census variables typically used as proxies for deprivation, such as income or categories of racialization, may not accurately reflect the social power dynamics and histories of urban development at play in diverse societies around the world. If researchers apply nonapplicable environmental justice theory to other areas, they may produce what is known as recognitional injustice rather than inform solutions. Recognition is defined in this context as respect for identities and cultural difference and the ways in which agents, ideas, and cultures are valued in discourse, practices, and policies.^16,17 High-quality and ethical research enacts recognitional justice by attending to the nuances of place and the context-specific dynamics of injustice.

The theme of recognitional justice must also inform policy responses to findings of distributional inequity. As cities around the world attempt to rectify green inequity, for example, through tree planting or park establishment, environmental justice research has expanded to examine the phenomenon of green gentrification—the physical or psychological displacement of underresourced populations as a result of urban greening.¹⁸ Although research on this topic is still emerging¹⁹ and findings are variable across jurisdictions,²⁰ there is growing evidence that the installation of new green amenities under capitalist development paradigms—which prioritize profit and invite financial investment alongside urban greening—risks displacing those that the greening was intended to serve.²¹ Recent research has found that green gentrification processes often include breakdowns in recognitional and procedural justice, applying a top-down “green is always good” approach to greening that does not consider the needs and desires of local communities or their potential vulnerability within a capitalist system.²²

As cities engage in greening efforts to improve resilience to climate change and address environmental inequities, there is an urgent need for place-based research in understudied jurisdictions to inform these efforts. This should include research that examines processes—such as green gentrification—that may frustrate efforts to improve existing inequities. A business-as-usual approach is unlikely to bring urban nature to those who need it most. If we want to create equitable cities and healthy communities, we need to think outside of the systems that created harm in the first place.

Refers to https://doi.org.10.1289/EHP11164