https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-026-00627-4
Research
Not your mean green: beyond averages in mapping socio-spatial inequities in urban greenery for smart cities
1
Institute of Sustainable Development (INE), School of Engineering (SoE), Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Technoparkstrasse 2, 8400, Winterthur, Switzerland
2
Computational Social Science, ETH Zurich, Stampfenbachstrasse 48, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland
a
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Received:
3
September
2025
Accepted:
31
January
2026
Published online:
9
February
2026
Abstract
As data-driven “smart city” agendas expand across Latin America, most urban performance metrics remain focused on infrastructure, connectivity, and aggregate efficiency, often neglecting who truly benefits. Urban greenery, a vital determinant of health and climate resilience, is one such blind spot. While some frameworks now consider “green space,” they do so at a coarse, citywide scale, overlooking how access is distributed across neighborhoods and social groups. This obscures critical equity gaps, particularly in cities marked by deep socio-spatial segregation. In this study, we develop a fully reproducible geospatial pipeline that integrates high-resolution canopy height models, public park data, gridded population estimates, and socioeconomic strata to assess how greenery is distributed, not just how much exists. Applied to Bogotá and Medellín, the method reveals stark disparities: population-weighted canopy coverage rises significantly between the lowest and highest strata, while access to public parks also shows measurable inequality, especially in high-density, underserved neighborhoods. These inequities persist despite progressive greening policies, revealing the limits of optimization when legacy segregation is ignored. Our open-source pipeline enables finer-grained, justice-oriented audits that go beyond averages to identify where greenery and its benefits are most lacking. By enabling fine-grained equity assessments, this approach underscores the importance of greenery distribution, not just quantity, as a critical indicator for inclusive and equitable smart cities.
Key words: Urban greenery / Environmental justice / Smart cities / Spatial inequality / Canopy height / Colombia
Handling Editor: Viktoria Spaiser
Jenny Martinez and Sachit Mahajan contributed equally to this work.
© The Author(s) 2026
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