Environmental equity and access to parks in Greater Montreal: an analysis of spatial proximity and potential congestion issues

ABSTRACT

Past studies have shown that the distribution of parks is not always equitably distributed in urban areas, raising concerns about environmental equity and justice. Most of them have analyzed park access by using the closest walking network distance. However, access could also vary locally according to both supply (park area or facilities) and the potential demand (population surrounding the park) by using the enhanced two-step floating catchment area (E2SFCA) method. This study aims to verify the existence of environmental inequities for four population groups (children, seniors, low-income individuals, and visible minorities) according to park proximity and potential park congestion. To do so, three accessibility measures are calculated: closest park (shortest walking distance) and two gradient E2SFCA (hectares and facilities per inhabitants). We find higher potential park area and facility congestion in inner-city neighborhoods than in suburban municipalities. Generalized linear models and multinomial logistic regression analyses show no drastic degrees of inequity over Greater Montreal. However, visible minorities and low-income households are more prone to live closer to potentially highly congested parks both in terms of hectares and facilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban parks
• environmental equity
• park planning
• metropolitan area
• Montreal

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jérémy Gelb for his insights on statistical modeling. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17549175.2022.2150271.

Notes

1. According to Statistics Canada, “low-income status refers to the income situation of the statistical unit in relation to a specific low-income line in a reference year. Statistical units with income that is below the low-income line are considered to be in low income. […] Low-income cut-offs, after-tax (LICO-AT)’ refers to income thresholds. […] More specifically, the thresholds represented income levels at which these families or persons were expected to spend 20 percentage points or more of their after-tax income than average on food, shelter and clothing” (Statistics Canada 2017, 183–84).

2. Statistics Canada defines this population group as follows: “Visible minority refers to whether a person is a visible minority or not, as defined by the Employment Equity Act. The Employment Equity Act defines visible minorities as persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour. The visible minority population consists mainly of the following groups: South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, Arab, Latin American, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean and Japanese” (Statistics Canada 2017, 151).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et Culture.