The Economic, Environmental, and Social Justice Impacts of Greening Vacant Lots: An Integrated Spatial Assessment of Urban Revitalization and Sustainability Outcomes

Author: Megan Heckert

Dissertation School: Temple University

Abstract:

The proposed research is a sustainability-based assessment of the impacts of a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based program that uses greening as an interim management strategy for vacant land. I will use quantitative spatial analysis techniques to measure economic, environmental, and social justice impacts of the Vacant Land Stabilization program, which treats vacant land by removing debris, bringing in topsoil, planting grass and trees, putting up a split-rail fence and providing maintenance during the growing season. The analysis is shaped by the concept of sustainability, which posits that to be sustainable, development must incorporate and balance economic development, environmental preservation, and social justice. The research will measure impacts on surrounding property values and success of commercial corridors, air pollution mitigation and carbon sequestration, and access to greenspace for underserved populations and communities. It will assess the extent to which these impacts vary based on location and whether or not there are significant tradeoffs between potential benefits.

The dissertation will use spatial and econometric modeling techniques to address nine hypotheses. These will include econometric modeling of changes in property values and commercial corridor growth, spatial analysis of differences in impacts between neighborhoods, application of ecological models of air pollution and carbon sequestration, and spatial modeling of access to greenspaces. These findings will be integrated into an overall assessment of sustainability outcomes at city and neighborhood levels to determine whether the program contributes to the three core dimensions of sustainability and whether or not there are tradeoffs between the dimensions.

The intellectual merit of this research lies in its integration of research on urban revitalization and sustainability with spatial analytical techniques. This research will advance current understandings of urban revitalization, sustainability and vacant land in several important ways. This research provides an opportunity to further the understanding of how urban goals relative to sustainability and revitalization may complement or potentially conflict with each other. This question is of particular importance in light of decades of economic decline in many cities across the United States, which is happening at the same time that more and more cities are pursuing sustainability agendas, often with the explicit or implicit goal of attracting new residents to stop or slow decline.

The use of explicitly spatial techniques in this area is also a relatively new advance. Unlike traditional statistics, spatial statistics expressly incorporate spatial relationships and location into how processes are modeled. Use of spatial techniques is new in greenspace research, but offers the benefit of understanding the role of location in moderating greenspace effects. No two neighborhoods are the same, and the use of aspatial global statistical techniques that ignore spatial relationships among observations and treat all locations equally has so far prevented a clear understanding of how or why different neighborhoods may respond differently to interventions.

This research has broader impacts for policymaking around vacant land and urban revitalization while also offering a new approach to analyzing project outcomes in terms of sustainability. With many cities experiencing prolonged population and economic decline, it is clear that a new approach is needed for addressing urban blight. While it is unlikely that any single approach will prove to be a cure-all that will spur revitalization of economically stable, environmentally healthy and socially just urban communities, understanding the impacts of new programs may provide guidance to municipal policymakers seeking to attract new residents without compromising the living conditions of existing residents. Evaluations that focus narrowly on a single set of impacts will not provide the nuanced understanding necessary for truly addressing urban blight while also promoting sustainability. In framing the assessment in terms of sustainability, I seek to illuminate the relationship between the goals of revitalization and sustainability and to highlight the benefits of a more holistic evaluation approach.

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