All San Diegans deserve healthy neighborhoods, yet decades of inequitable public investments (locally and nationally) have perpetuated such environmental injustice as few trees and parks, more pavement, and hotter temperatures.
- Social Equity Considerations for Cities’ Decision Making Related to Inner, Nearby, and Faraway Forests, https://cities4forests.com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/07/C4FSocialEquity_LearningGuide.pdf .
- City of San Diego climate equity index, https://www.sandiego.gov/climateEquity
- Webinar, Redlining’s Intensifying Harm: Rising Temperatures, Hotter Neighborhoods, and How Trees Can Help, August 12, 2020, https://www.fs.fed.us/research/urbanwebinars/risingtemphotterneighborhoods.php
- Historical Redlining Contributed To Health Disparities in San Diego, July 13, 2020, https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/jul/13/ucsd-public-health-school-dean-explains-how-redlin/
- How Decades of Racist Housing Policy Left Neighborhoods Sweltering,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/24/climate/racism-redlining-cities-global-warming.html - Environmental Health Coalition, Start Here, Start Now: An environmental justice assessment of the City of San Diego’s Climate Action Plan, http://sdrufc.com/climate-equity-and-trees/
Green cities: Good Health, volumes of research and practical applications, http://depts.washington.edu/hhwb/. Full webpages on: Livable Cities, Place Attachment & Meaning, Crime & Public Safety, Safe Streets, Active Living, Mental Health & Function, Work & Learning, Lifecycle & Gender and more.
Resources about health, heat, shade and trees:
- California Climate Change and Health Equity Program, https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/CCHEP.aspx
- California Building Resilience Against Climate Change Effects-BRACE, https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/CalBRACE.aspx
- Webinar, Rx for Hot Cities: Urban Greening and Cooling to Reduce Heat-Related Mortality in Los Angeles and Beyond, July 8, 2020, https://www.fs.fed.us/research/urbanwebinars/rxforhotcities.php
- American Public Health Association, climate change impacts, https://www.apha.org/topicsandissues/climatechange/
- News article about Phoenix and urban heat, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/climate-solutions/phoenix-climate-change-heat/
- News article about reducing heat in Los Angeles, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/aug/21/cooling-goo-sidewalks-and-other-strange-new-weapons-in-the-war-on-urban-heat
- News article about New York City and “cooling off,” https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17082020/new-york-heat-climate-change-coronavirus
Resources about community engagement. There are longstanding examples of programs to “help” communities that are low-income-minority, both successful and less effective.
- Koreatown area of Los Angeles,https://www.kyccla.org/services/environmental-services/free-trees-2/
- Solid sociological research documented this for tree-planting programs in Detroit neighborhoods with low-income and minority residents, where 24% of residents rejected offers for free trees, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/science/detroit-trees-health.html, even though they appreciated the benefits of trees, because of negative experiences with city workers or outsiders about trees. Recommendations were that residents be involved in at least choosing the type of tree they receive, and that agencies shift their metrics of success to include engagement of residents such as stipends to local high school students to maintain and teach residents about trees.