Spatial patterns of urban green infrastructure for equity: A novel exploration

Urbanization processes spur the need for urban green infrastructure (GI) to support the well-being of urban dwellers and underpin a sustainable planning strategy. It is a challenge for urban planning to make cities equitable in a socio-spatial way for which strategic planning are demanded based on measured gradients of spatial equity for GI. Strategically, urban GI planning should pay tribute to the inherent spatial patterns and foster a fair distribution of GI towards spatial equity. Our aim is hence to investigate the spatial patterns of urban GI and disclose how spatial patterns affect spatial equity of GI in typical residential areas. The sample sites are in a central European city, Leipzig, the fastest growing city in Germany at present, with high pressure on urban growth. To elaborate an innovative approach, this study draws up a cascade of three methodological stages: 1) deploy the approach of an urban Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) to compare urban GI patterns in three typical residential local districts, 2) use the GI-adapted Gini coefficient to measure spatial equity of GI distributions, and 3) explore the relationships between GI spatial patterns and spatial equity of GI for each residential type. In the context of three typical residential areas in Leipzig (i.e. (semi-)detached houses, linear multistorey housing estates, and perimeter blocks), a combination of the MSPA and a spatial equity measurement assists our novel exploration to disclose the relationships between the spatial patterns and the equity of GI distributions. Thus, we can prove strong similarities on the characteristics of spatial patterns in each residential type and observe a tendency of increasing equity from (semi-)detached houses to linear housing and further to perimeter blocks. As significant findings for the support of strategic urban GI planning, we discover that GI cores provide a restricted increase of spatial equity that limited to the lack of space. Furthermore, we suggest more GI bridges to enhance structural connectivity as well as spatial equity. This paper depicts the spatial equity of GI distributions in typical residential areas from morphological perspective, and thus further underpins urban GI planning for strategic networks as a key principle of the urban GI concept. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.