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Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility

Increasing job accessibility is considered key to urban sustainability progress, both from an environmental and from a social perspective. However, sustainability outcomes depend on the processes contributing to accessibility trends, not just the trends themselves. Here, we ask whether sustainabilit...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Stokes, Eleanor C., Seto, Karen C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196522/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30275299
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807563115
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author Stokes, Eleanor C.
Seto, Karen C.
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Seto, Karen C.
author_sort Stokes, Eleanor C.
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description Increasing job accessibility is considered key to urban sustainability progress, both from an environmental and from a social perspective. However, sustainability outcomes depend on the processes contributing to accessibility trends, not just the trends themselves. Here, we ask whether sustainability benefits have followed from accessibility trends in the United States. We measure changes in accessibility from 2002 to 2014 across 909 US urban areas and decompose these changes to understand underlying infrastructure and land use processes. Our results show that job accessibility has increased across 74% of urban areas for the average resident, using both cars and transit. However, most of these accessibility gains were not achieved in ways that are inherently beneficial to environmental or social sustainability. In some urban areas, accessibility increases were conducive to reducing emissions, while in others, accessibility increases were conducive to reducing social inequities. However, accessibility increases almost never created a simultaneous social and environmental “win–win,” as is often assumed. Our findings highlight how the spatial patterns of urbanization create tradeoffs between different facets of sustainability. Identifying where social objectives take precedence over environmental objectives (or vice versa) could help determine how accessibility increases can be accomplished to contribute to a more sustainable urban future.
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spelling pubmed-61965222018-10-23 Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility Stokes, Eleanor C. Seto, Karen C. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A PNAS Plus Increasing job accessibility is considered key to urban sustainability progress, both from an environmental and from a social perspective. However, sustainability outcomes depend on the processes contributing to accessibility trends, not just the trends themselves. Here, we ask whether sustainability benefits have followed from accessibility trends in the United States. We measure changes in accessibility from 2002 to 2014 across 909 US urban areas and decompose these changes to understand underlying infrastructure and land use processes. Our results show that job accessibility has increased across 74% of urban areas for the average resident, using both cars and transit. However, most of these accessibility gains were not achieved in ways that are inherently beneficial to environmental or social sustainability. In some urban areas, accessibility increases were conducive to reducing emissions, while in others, accessibility increases were conducive to reducing social inequities. However, accessibility increases almost never created a simultaneous social and environmental “win–win,” as is often assumed. Our findings highlight how the spatial patterns of urbanization create tradeoffs between different facets of sustainability. Identifying where social objectives take precedence over environmental objectives (or vice versa) could help determine how accessibility increases can be accomplished to contribute to a more sustainable urban future. National Academy of Sciences 2018-10-16 2018-10-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6196522/ /pubmed/30275299 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807563115 Text en Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle PNAS Plus
Stokes, Eleanor C.
Seto, Karen C.
Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility
title Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility
title_full Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility
title_fullStr Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility
title_full_unstemmed Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility
title_short Tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility
title_sort tradeoffs in environmental and equity gains from job accessibility
topic PNAS Plus
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6196522/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30275299
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807563115
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