Children's green walk to school: An evaluation of welfare-related disparities in the visibility of greenery among children. Issue 110 (August 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Łaszkiewicz, Edyta; Sikorska, Daria
• Is Part Of: Environmental science & policy. Issue 110(2020)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 13
• Publication Date: 2020-08
• Subjects: Urban ecosystem services -- Environmental justice -- Urban planning -- GIS -- Spatial analysis -- Green corridors; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; Environmental sciences -- Periodicals; Environnement -- Politique gouvernementale -- Périodiques; Sciences de l'environnement -- Périodiques; Environmental policy; Environmental sciences; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 363.70561
• DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2020.05.009
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1462-9011

Abstract

Highlights: The visibility of street trees, and dense tree and shrub canopies in an area of 5 and 10 m around home-school routes is scarce. The median coverage of greenery in the visibility area of 5 m around home-school routes is equal to 15%. Poor visibility of greenery may indicate limited aesthetic appreciation for children. Environmental injustice can be understood as welfare-related inequalities in the visibility of greenery along home-school routes among children. Promoting an active home-school commute needs urban planning actions towards greening the walking routes. Abstract: The multiple positive effects of an active school commute have convinced many cities to promote home-school walks among children and increase the awareness of designing healthy, child-friendly routes. One of the ways to ensure a child-friendly and healthy daily walk to school is to increase the greenery that children encounter on their way. This paper aims to evaluate welfare-related disparities among children in the visibility of greenery along their home-school routes and link them with distributive (in)justice regarding aesthetic appreciation. We hypothesise that children who belong to poor welfare-related status group have lower visibility of greenery along their routes to school than other children. Furthermore, we hypothesise that aesthetic appreciation provided by the greenery surrounding home-school routes is not equitably distributed to all children. For this purpose, we conducted a visibility analysis for primary school pupils in Lodz (Poland). In particular, we quantified the amount of greenery in the visibility areas of 5, 10, 30 and 50 m along the home-school routes of children. Our results show that the median visibility of greenery along the home-school routes is lower for shorter visibility distances (5 and 10 m) and street trees, dense tree and shrub canopies what could be further related to limited aesthetic experiences. We found that children who belong to poor welfare-related status group have less greenery along their home-school routes than others. This could indicate a distributive environmental injustice may occur not only in terms of the availability of green spaces for inhabitant's homes but also reveal disparities in the visibility of greenery during daily commutes. Our findings contribute to the ongoing discussion on making cities greener. In particular, they may be used by urban planners to identify priority streets for implementing urban green initiatives.