Evaluating the Equity of Urban Streetscapes in Promoting Human Health—Taking Shanghai Inner City as an Example

Abstract

Environmental justice research largely focuses on the allocation of public resources in terms of quantified distribution and accessibility. This study suggests that the quality of landscape equity, an important urban resource, should be evaluated as it typically appears as a combination of elements. This brings another perspective to the attention of landscape equity in addition to the provision equity: the equity in the quality and level of provision. From this perspective, this study explores the equitable role of streetscape qualities in promoting human physical, mental, and social health. Using street view images, questionnaires, artificial intelligence-based image analysis, geographic information system-based cluster analysis, and correlational analysis, the spatial distribution of health promotion streetscapes and health-influential streetscape elements were presented and compared within the scope of the Shanghai Outer Ring Road. The results disclosed an uneven distribution of streetscapes that can promote human health within research sites. Streets with poor health ratings are concentrated in the Huangpu, Hongkou, and Yangpu districts, primarily in the western part of Shanghai around Shanghai Railway Station, People’s Square, and Yuyuan Garden, where the old city centre is located. Compared with the distribution of health-influential elements, less healthy streets are more likely to be accompanied by low visibility of ‘vegetation’ and a high proportion of ‘buildings’. Streetscape design implications were then discussed in terms of providing people with equal health opportunities. Research outcomes inspired an essential quality perspective in health equity research, and it can be especially helpful when the provision and accessibility can hardly be moderated in high-density cities.