Green Apartheid: Urban green infrastructure remains unequally distributed across income and race geographies in South Africa

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

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Fig. 5. Map displaying the slope (colour scale) and adjusted R2 (size scale) for the linear regression of green infrastructure variables on per capita income. A separate linear model was performed for each municipal district (see Fig. 1), and points reflect the municipality centroids. The reader can interpret these values as the slope and fit of the linear trend lines plotted in Fig. 3 except here they are stratified by district municipality and not race.

10.21504/rur.14413607 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirile Sebogoe ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Linear Trend ◽

Racial Groups ◽

National Scale ◽

Public And Private ◽

Human Wellbeing ◽

Urban South ◽

Colour Scale

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 1. Distribution of urban census tracts used in our analysis (red). District municipality polygons are outlined in black. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

10.21504/rur.14413565 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirilwe Selomane ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Racial Segregation ◽

Racial Groups ◽

National Scale ◽

Public And Private ◽

Census Tracts ◽

Human Wellbeing ◽

Urban South

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 1. Distribution of urban census tracts used in our analysis (red). District municipality polygons are outlined in black. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

10.21504/rur.14413565.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirilwe Selomane ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Racial Segregation ◽

Racial Groups ◽

National Scale ◽

Public And Private ◽

Census Tracts ◽

Human Wellbeing ◽

Urban South

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 5. Map displaying the slope (colour scale) and adjusted R2 (size scale) for the linear regression of green infrastructure variables on per capita income. A separate linear model was performed for each municipal district (see Fig. 1), and points reflect the municipality centroids. The reader can interpret these values as the slope and fit of the linear trend lines plotted in Fig. 3 except here they are stratified by district municipality and not race.

10.21504/rur.14413607.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirile Sebogoe ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Linear Trend ◽

Racial Groups ◽

National Scale ◽

Public And Private ◽

Human Wellbeing ◽

Urban South ◽

Colour Scale

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 4. Box-and-whisker plots of log-transformed monthly income for census districts with and without parks, for each race category (A). Three park attributes including distance from residence (B), the percentage of census tract covered by park (C) and park size (D) are plotted against log-transformed monthly income. Please refer to the caption in Fig. 3 for description of data points and trend lines. Park distance, size and cover are also log-transformed.

10.21504/rur.14413601 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirile Sebogoe ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Racial Groups ◽

Monthly Income ◽

National Scale ◽

Public And Private ◽

Urban South ◽

Data Points ◽

Race Category

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 4. Box-and-whisker plots of log-transformed monthly income for census districts with and without parks, for each race category (A). Three park attributes including distance from residence (B), the percentage of census tract covered by park (C) and park size (D) are plotted against log-transformed monthly income. Please refer to the caption in Fig. 3 for description of data points and trend lines. Park distance, size and cover are also log-transformed.

10.21504/rur.14413601.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirile Sebogoe ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Racial Groups ◽

Monthly Income ◽

National Scale ◽

Public And Private ◽

Urban South ◽

Data Points ◽

Race Category

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 2. The frequency distributions of per capita monthly income are plotted, as stacked histograms for each race category (A). Median income values per race are plotted with dashed lines. The relation between monthly income and population density across racial categories is plotted with linear regression lines and 95% confidence interval ribbons (B). Each point is a census district. The frequency distribution of census tracts across proportional racial population composition are plotted in C. P

10.21504/rur.14413571 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirilwe Selomane ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Median Income ◽

Racial Groups ◽

Monthly Income ◽

Public And Private ◽

Frequency Distributions ◽

Racial Categories ◽

Urban South

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 8. Trajectories in neighborhood greenness (relative to city means) are fitted with linear trend line (solid lines) and generalized additive model lines (dashed) for each race category (A). The distribution of regression line slopes (i.e. slope of linear trend line in A) per census tract are displayed using a violin plot with data medians and interquartile ranges plotted with dots and horizontal bars (B).

10.21504/rur.14413709 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirile Sebogoe ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Linear Trend ◽

Regression Line ◽

Additive Model ◽

Racial Groups ◽

Public And Private ◽

Trend Line ◽

Urban South

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text

Fig. 2. The frequency distributions of per capita monthly income are plotted, as stacked histograms for each race category (A). Median income values per race are plotted with dashed lines. The relation between monthly income and population density across racial categories is plotted with linear regression lines and 95% confidence interval ribbons (B). Each point is a census district. The frequency distribution of census tracts across proportional racial population composition are plotted in C. P

10.21504/rur.14413571.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zander S Venter ◽

Charlie M. Shackleton ◽

Francini Van Staden ◽

Odirilwe Selomane ◽

Vanessa A Masterson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Low Income ◽

Green Infrastructure ◽

Median Income ◽

Racial Groups ◽

Monthly Income ◽

Public And Private ◽

Frequency Distributions ◽

Racial Categories ◽

Urban South

Urban green infrastructure provides ecosystem services that are essential to human wellbeing. A dearth of national-scale assessments in the Global South has precluded the ability to explore how political regimes, such as the forced racial segregation in South Africa during and after Apartheid, have influenced the extent of and access to green infrastructure over time. We investigate whether there are disparities in green infrastructure distributions across race and income geographies in urban South Africa. Using open-source satellite imagery and geographic information, along with national census statistics, we find that public and private green infrastructure is more abundant, accessible, greener and more treed in high-income relative to low-income areas, and in areas where previously advantaged racial groups (i.e. White citizens) reside.

Download Full-text