IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section B

Abstract

Green spaces support urban social systems by generating a wide and diverse array of services. Urban green spaces’ chief positive contributions to people include heat regulation, stormwater management, and public health improvements. Im/migrants have been found to be among the most vulnerable urban resident groups globally, thus ensuring green space accessibility is of the utmost importance. This study investigates the impacts that urban green space distribution and management have on im/migrants’ ability to access social and financial capital. Most importantly, it brings forward an investigation of urban green spaces as a policy vehicle to promote social equity and community inclusion. We compared urban green space management practices in the cities of Durham, North Carolina, and Bergamo, Italy. The United States and European countries present very distinct migration and urban management settings. We used the US Forestry Department’s Healthy Trees Healthy City (HTHC) index to measure urban green space management quality and Landsat 8 images to approximate urban green space distribution. Our sample consists of a stratification of city neighborhoods based on foreign-born resident density. We also took two distinct Latinx immigrant communities as case studies, charting their historical and current relationship with urban green spaces in Durham and Bergamo, respectively. Both the cities had experienced their first Hispanic migration flows during the 1980s and 1990s and the resident communities are similar in number, socio-economic status, and employment sector. Because of their relevance to community integration, we consider urban green spaces as a valuable policy tool to create new cultural landscapes in cities with large or growing immigrant populations.