How does green space inequality compare to other inequalities?

Professor Danny Dorling
University of Sheffield
Keynote 6th July 2010, 1 Kemble Street, London
Launch of Report; Green Space and Race: the connections between health, ethnicity and inequality
How does green space inequality compare to other inequalities?
Watch the full multimedia version of this presentation at http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/presentations/

Thanks to Ben Hennig for map (equal population European topography)

Picture courtesy of Mike from D-fuse: www.dfuse.com

It’s always the same places!
Hallam
Highgate
North/South
Picture from Thomas, B. and Dorling, D. (2007) Identity in Britain, Policy Press.

Oxford NW
Same patterns
Picture from Thomas, B. and Dorling, D. (2007) Identity in Britain, Policy Press.

Community green: using local spaces to tackle inequality and improve health
Intervention on people help the chances for individuals, but may widen gaps
Interventions on places can be much longer lasting and help far more people
Just as a land-value-tax cannot be escaped by emigration (it is a good way to target the rich) so creating green space in inner cities is a good way to target poverty

Tokyo – not looking green

Tokyo – looking green

Community green
“…people living in deprived areas have five times less parks and general public space than the most affluent 20 per cent of areas. If you live in an area where more than 40 per cent of the population are people from black and minority ethnic groups, you will have 11 times less public green space than areas where fewer than 2 per cent of their population are people from minority ethnic groups.”
How unusual is this? The best-off fifth of people in Britain now earn and receive 7.2 times the income of the worse-off fifth (6.9 in 1997). Is it any surprise that the best-off have access to 5 times more parks and other green space?
Source: Injustice, why social inequality persists

Living above the 4th floor
Of all the statistics revealed by the 2001 census, the starkest showed that in England, the majority of children living on the fifth floor or above were not of white ethnicity.
Of all the statistics that have been revealed since, the greatest surprise is that the number of school children who had to share their bedroom with an adult or sibling over the age of 10 and of the opposite sex rose from8% in 1999 to 15% by 2005.
Source: Injustice: Why social inequality persists, Policy Press,2010, page 117. Photography by Mary Shaw

Poor housing and ethnicity
In the UK, in the eight years between 1998-2006: “…the number of statutory homeless households fell by slightly over 8% while the number of non-white BME homeless households increased by 14.5%.
Roberts, R. and W. McMahon (2008). Debating race, ethnicity, harm and crime. London, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Pages 17 and 18

Homes and homelessness
There was a striking increase in the number of homeless African/Caribbean households of between 25% and 42%.
The unequal distribution of squalor continues – “33% of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living in unfit dwellings compared to 6% White”
Roberts, R. and W. McMahon (2008). Debating race, ethnicity, harm and crime. London, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Pages 17 and 18

Poor mental health and racism
“For men and women, the rates of admission for BME groups were over three times higher than average. In the ‘other Black’ group, admission rates were ten times higher than average”
2007
Sources:
http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/publications/2009/EHC_Dorling_response.pdf
Dorling and Thomas, “People and Places”

Living behind bars
The1991 census revealed that, in crude terms, a man was twelve times more likely to be in prison if he were black.
By 2005, BME people accounted for approximately 24% of the male prison population and 28% of the female prison population.
Sources: www.worldmapper.org and Dorling, D. (1995) A New Social Atlas of Britain, Chichester: Wiley.

Living with fear and others’ fear
“Over a third of minority groups reported experiencing overt racism in Britain in 2005. At least five times as many racially motivated crimes occurred as were reported.”
In 2007, 30% of “movers and shakers” in London would not vote for a Mayoral candidate who was a Muslim.
Sources: Lewis, M. and N. Newman (2007). Challenging Attitudes, Perceptions and Myths. Report for the Commission on Integration and Cohesion. London, The Commission on Integration and Cohesion. (page 6). Evening Standard. London. Tuesday 13 November, 2007: pp.8-9
“Lembit Opik: I’ll stand in race for
Mayor if London wants me”

Discrimination in racism
“Black pupils are five times less likely to be registered as ‘gifted and talented’.”
Education policy, 2006
"I felt my teachers saw me as far more threatening "
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Actor
"Black boys' performance is due to institutionalised racism"
Courtenay Griffiths, Barrister
"Some of my best friends were racists"
Ekow Eshun, Artistic Director, ICA
Ball, S. J. (2008). The Education Debate. Bristol, Policy Press. (page 172-173, quoting in turn from the Independent on Sunday’s release of an unpublished Department for Education and Schools report in December 2006.
Quotations published in the Independent on Sunday in response.

2010 headlines – no let up
70% rise in number of black and Asian people stopped and searched. Black people are now seven times more likely to be stopped than white people. (2008/9 compared to 2004/5)
June 17th
Black pupils are routinely marked down by teachers. “Teachers' assessment of children's ability is undermined by stereotyping, says research” which compared latest SAT results to informal assessments.
April 4th
Sources:http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jun/17/stop-and-search-police and Asthana, A., T. Helm and T. McVeigh (2010). The Observer. London. April 4th.

Inequality/deprivation underlies and reflects most of British life
Children subject to protection orders, per 10,000 (2008 orange, +2009 black)
Sources: CABE report and forthcoming, Areas are local authorities ranked by same measure

Community green should still shockdespite what we already know
The inequality it reveals is high and unusually high even compared to prejudice as measured in schooling, crime, housing, jobs and health…
Nowhere in the UK compares to São Paulo, Brazil …
… but are we now as unequal as Los Angeles in the 1970s?
Source: a face map by Eugene Turner, 1977

Thanks to Ben Hennig for map (equal population European topography)

Keynote 6th July 2010, 1 Kemble Street, London
Launch of Report; Green Space and Race: the connections between health, ethnicity and inequality
Watch the full multimedia version of this presentation at http://sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/presentations/

How does green space inequality compare to other inequalities?

by Sasi Research Group, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield on Jul 10, 2010

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How does green space inequality compare to other inequalities? — Presentation Transcript