Smart Cities and Access to Nature: A Framework for Evaluating Green
Recreation Space Accessibility
Abstract
As our world becomes increasingly urbanized, smart cities are leading
the way in using technology to create more efficient, connected, and
sustainable environments. However, amidst all the talk of connectivity
and smartness, it’s crucial not to lose sight of one of the most basic
human needs: access to nature in cities. This research describes a novel
open-source framework for investigating the availability and
accessibility of green recreation spaces using open-source data and
statistical analytic approaches. The framework includes a comprehensive
set of tools for data extraction, processing, analysis, and
visualization, thereby enabling reproducible geospatial research. We
test our framework on five international cities: Medellin, Milan,
Chicago, Singapore, and Mumbai. Through geospatial analysis and
statistical modeling of data sourced from OpenStreetMaps, we explore and
comprehend the characteristics and distribution of spatial accessibility
related to green recreation spaces in five cities. We find significant
clustering of green recreation spaces in all these cities, indicating
that a majority of such spaces are located in close proximity to each
other within small areas. Our findings also shed light on the potential
implications of unequal distribution of green recreation spaces for the
health and well-being of city residents and highlight the need for
policies and initiatives that promote equitable access to green
recreation spaces in smart cities.