How to Spot Income Inequality From Space? Count the Trees

[KamaAina]

http://billmoyers.com/2012/06/10/how-to-spot-income-inequality-from-space-count-the-trees/

The poet Joyce Kilmer once wrote: “I think that I shall never see. A poem lovely as a tree.” Trees in urban settings are more than just lovely, they actually clean the air, reduce noise pollution, reduce the need for air conditioning in the summer and work against the greenhouse effect. They even reduce stress. And according to blogger Tim De Chant, they also prove to be a good indicator of income inequality as viewed from space.

A few weeks ago De Chant wrote in his blog, Per Square Mile, about a research paper he had come across that presented some interesting findings. De Chant explained it in his post:

“[F]or every 1 percent increase in per capita income, demand for forest cover increased by 1.76 percent. But when income dropped by the same amount, demand decreased by 1.26 percent. That’s a pretty tight correlation. The researchers reason that wealthier cities can afford more trees, both on private and public property. The well-to-do can afford larger lots, which in turn can support more trees. On the public side, cities with larger tax bases can afford to plant and maintain more trees.”

It got De Chant thinking about whether it would be possible to actually see income inequality from space. So he did some googling. And he found that not only was it very easy to spot in cities across the United States, it was also evident in cities around the globe. See for yourself. The first image of each set is the lower income neighborhood.

West Oakland:



Piedmont (a Beverly Hills-style enclave completely surrounded by Oakland):





edit: West Oakland was where I sat for two wonderful cats in January. I was actually quite impressed with how much greenery it had for an urban area!

[Coventina]

1. Wow. That is amazing.

Thanks for posting!!

[KittyWampus]

2. North Korea at night (it's almost all dark between China and South Korea)

That one spot of light in the middle is Pyongyang

In describing the image, NASA said “the darkened land appears as if it were a patch of water joining the Yellow Sea to the Sea of Japan. The capital city, Pyongyang, appears like a small island, despite a population of 3.26 million.”
According to the World Bank, North Korea consumed just 739 kilowatt hours per capita in 2011, whereas South Korea was at 10,162 kilowatt hours per capita. (For comparison’s sake, Iceland had the highest consumption rate, at 52,374 kilowatt hours per capita. The lowest, Haiti, had a consumption rate of 32 kilowatt hours per capita.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-shrouded-in-darkness-in-stunning-new-photo-from-space-station/



A NASA image released this week shows a recent night view of the Korean Peninsula. Apart from a spot of light in Pyongyang, North Korea is mostly cloaked in darkness, with China (top left) and South Korea (bottom right) on either side

[daleanime]

4. Wow....

that's stark.

[zeemike]

7. The question is which is the scary part the dark or the light?

That light at night represents an enormous amount of energy being used and all of it emitting carbon and pollution.
So the dark is scary for the present and the light scarry for the future.

[daleanime]

3. ......

[KittyWampus]

5. Access to Green Space Improves Mental Health

Parks, Green Spaces Protect Your Health
Study Shows People Living Near Parks Less Likely to Have Depression
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20091014/parks-green-spaces-protect-your-health



There is more evidence that living near parks, woods, or other green spaces may improve your mental and physical health.

Close proximity to green spaces was associated with less depression, anxiety, and other health problems in a newly published study. The relationship was strongest for children and people with low incomes.

The research is not the first to suggest that green spaces help keep people healthy, but it is the first to assess their impact on specific health conditions.

Investigators in the Netherlands examined patient health records from medical practices throughout the country. Using postal codes, they were also able to determine the percentage of green space existing within about 2 miles of each patient's home.

snip
Biggest Impact on Anxiety, Depression
The study included data on the prevalence of 24 different health conditions treated over the course of a year among about 350,000 patients seen at 96 practices.

For 15 of the 24 conditions, the annual prevalence was lower among patients living in the greenest areas, even after the researchers controlled for factors known to influence health.





Access to green space, physical activity and mental health: a twin study.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25631858


Green space, urbanity, and health: how strong is the relation?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566234/

[kjones]

6. West Virginia. Beautifully green....pretty poor.

[KamaAina]

8. Scottsdale, AZ. Desert... pretty wealthy.

You need to compare apples to apples, like the two shots in and around Oakland.

[kjones]

17. I think my point is that this is pretty biased towards urban areas

and of course, the specific area you reference. It doesn't quite hold
true in many other areas of the nation. Like you said, need to compare
apples to apples. I'd say the obvious more generalizable indicator of
income inequality is density of people.

[kjones]

18. All I'm saying is, much better ways to look at poverty and income disparity

So, looking at Chicago, because I know that best...better than the other places.
Here's a larger image of the area in question...Hyde Park and Woodlawn. The Hyde Park
image sample from article is the yellow square and the Woodlawn sample is the red square.
However, the circles show that there are some sampling biases...Hyde Park has areas (yellow
circle) that aren't as green, and Woodlawn has areas that are greener than the sample.
Both communities are adjacent to communal green areas. Interestingly, the same green areas,
seeing as they are adjacent communities.



Here's an image of the New City/Englewood area nearby. Poorer that Woodlawn even...
still, green.

[hunter]

9. Iceland generates its electricity and heats it's homes and businesses with volcano power...

... so their per capita electric power use isn't so awful as any place that burns coal.

Are areas of great population density, like San Francisco or Manhattan, an exception or do their parks count?

San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Manhattan's Central Park are gems, especially if you are living in a tiny apartment within easy walking distance or a short hop away by public transportation. These two cities are among the most expensive places to live in the world yet the average resident has abandoned the automobile culture. I don't think that's a coincidence.

[KamaAina]

11. SF is not doing as well with its Transit First policy as it should be

Part of the problem is that Muni sucks big, green, moss-covered rocks.

People are turning to Lyft and Uber in large numbers. Not sure how much of an improvement that is over the private car, though.

[hunter]

16. I've got relatives, in-laws, and friends living in San Francisco.

They are all feeling pressured by the clueless uber-wealthy class who they must cater to because it's business.

My grandmother was born at home in San Francisco, just after the Great Earthquake, in a redwood framed house that survived.

My grandma's older sister, by some good fortune, was out of town with her mom, visiting relatives. Her dad was in Oakland, in a building he owned that didn't fall down.

As a toddler and small child in post earthquake San Francisco my great aunt had many vivid memories of the aftermath.

Frankly, my great aunt was a gentle racist. Her family's Chinese laundry man would bring her exotic sweets. She had many fond memories of him. Her family's live-in Irish cook/maid was like Alice in the Brady Bunch. As a kid she once got separated from her mom and wandered into a tent camp of "colored" people where they treated her like a golden princess until the proper authorities arrived and reunited her with her family. My great aunt would say the most jaw-dropping clueless racist sorts of of things, but she didn't hate. Her twice divorced and annulled white radical bleeding edge progressive self (for the time) married, at last, her TRUE LOVE, a Catholic Italian!

She was dancing at my own big fat Mexican Catholic wedding.

Can you imagine!!! That may have been the final straw that killed her WASP striving mother.

Our family's San Francisco house was sold to strangers in the Great Depression when all my great grandfather's prescient and highly leveraged aerospace, radio, and movie dreams went bust. He'd bet on all the wrong horses, the most brilliant, not the sharks. In modern measure, Amiga, BSD, not Microsoft or Apple.

The San Francisco house has now been subdivided into many apartments, some as small as my grandma's childhood bedroom, with minimal Home Depot special bathroom and kitchen additions. The Irish cook/housekeeper's three small rooms with a door to the garden are now the luxury expensive "suite," and the rent for any apartment in that house is higher than my mortgage for a house and garden five times larger and a hundred plus miles away.

But the original California house still stands.

I once spoke with a resident who was incredulous that my great grandfather had built the entire house, paid it off, and considered himself ordinary upper middle class.

I now live in a California agricultural community where some of the roads are named after miscellaneous great grandparents' cousins.

Maybe I'd be a clueless uber-wealthy person with great inherited wealth and privilege if some of my ancestors hadn't been so damned optimistic.

And wouldn't that be hell, trying to preserve that? My freedom is hard won.

Yes, I may still be an asshole, but I'm not the kind of asshole who has never had to worry that he might have abandon a shopping cart full of groceries when his debit card is rejected.

Been there, done that.

In my darkest times I've lived in my car in a church parking lot.

Ask me to choose between a good story and money, I'll choose the story.

The stories are more likely to last.

[BrotherIvan]

10. An new and awful trend I have noticed in Los Angeles

A developer buys a plot with an older building which is demolished and a new condo or store is put up. But the first thing they do is chop down all the tall, old trees which might make the sidewalk uneven or get into pipes. When the development is finished, they plant new saplings that will take a century to grow as large as the old trees. No shade in dry, hot Los Angeles. It's criminal.

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. Go to Google Earth and zoom in on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The Haitian side of the island has been virtually stripped of trees and the line clearly shows up on satellite shots.

[KamaAina]

13. I have seen shots of that.

That's Haiti on the left, obviously. Couldn't some of the many NGOs that operate there start a tree-planting program?

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. They've cut the trees down primarily for firewood.

From what I understand, the main reason there are so few trees in Haiti is because over the years, the people have cut them down in order to cook their food.

How's that for crappy resource distribution?

[KamaAina]

15. I have heard that as well.

All more reason to have a Haitian Arbor Day.

[KittyWampus]

19. there used to be groups who helped countries in this predicament w/solar ovens

Found a basic link.

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Haiti_Solar_Oven_Partners