Seminar: “Brownfields to Greenfields -Derelict Lands, Deprivation, and Health Inequality in Glasgow and New York City” by Prof. Juliana Maantay

Seminar: “Brownfields to Greenfields -Derelict Lands, Deprivation, and Health Inequality in Glasgow and New York City”



Speaker: Prof. Juliana Maantay, City University New York CUNY 



Date: Friday, November 23rd

time: 11 am

Venue: Room 61.102-104 at the Edifici Campus Mar (next to the PRBB)



Glasgow, Scotland and New York City (NYC) both have large amounts and proportions of vacant and derelict land (VDL) which can be re-purposed for health-promoting uses.  In both cities, the VDL is concentrated in high deprivation areas, and there is a strong spatial correspondence between concentrations of VDL and numerous adverse physical and mental health outcomes.  In Glasgow, several health indicators were mapped and analyzed to examine health inequities within the city and explore the spatial correspondence between areas of poor health, high deprivation, and proximity to derelict land, much of which is contaminated from past industrial uses.  People in high deprivation areas in close proximity to VDL are significantly more likely to be hospitalized for respiratory disease and cancer; have low birth weight infants; have higher mental health prescription drug rates; and for men to have much lower life expectancy than those not living in these areas, indicating substantial health inequities within Glasgow, even when controlling for socio-demographic factors.  A vulnerability index was developed, combining scores for health, deprivation, and environmental variables, to be used to select and prioritize communities for resource allocation and planning efforts.  In NYC, a similar pattern regarding VDL, health impacts, and environmental justice has been found.  A significant amount of VDL has been transformed through community-led greening projects, improving environmental conditions in these neighborhoods, but also increasing the risk of gentrification, and thus ultimately displacing the residents of these improved neighborhoods, which tend to be comprised of lower-income, racial and ethnic minorities, and other vulnerable populations.  The results of the analyses suggest that proximity to community gardens is associated with significant increases in per capita income over the five years study period, which is indicative of areas undergoing gentrification.  This research is part of an on-going project comparing Glasgow and New York City regarding the relationship between environmental health justice and aspects of the built environment.



Biosketch

Juliana Maantay is Professor of Urban Environmental Geography at City University of New York since 1998.  She founded and directs the graduate program in Geographic Information Science as well as the Urban GISc Lab, and has edited several compendia and written two widely-used textbooks and numerous other publications on the urban environment and geospatial analysis.  Her main research foci are environmental justice, health disparities, and exposure assessment, specifically in urban areas, and she is also interested in the uses of GISc for participatory planning and policy work and historical and cultural research.  For 25 years prior to her academic career, she was an urban planner, environmental policy analyst, and architect.  In 2012 she received a Distinguished Chair Award from the US-UK Fulbright Commission to conduct research on the health impacts of the built environment at the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow, Scotland, which was the foundation for some of the work presented here.