Urban land use cover changes in three developed cities of the United States: San Diego, Denver, and Buffalo

Using imagery available through Google Earth Pro and a point sampling methodology, changes in land cover for three U.S. cities were assessed, beginning during the Great Recession (2007) and extending through to 2018. The cities were Buffalo (New York), Denver (Colorado), and San Diego (California), and 11 land cover classes were used to characterize each. The novel contributions of this work, and the innovative contributions to science include an analysis of urban land cover change in the years since the Great Recession, and the use of point pattern analysis on sample points that changed from non-developed in 2007 to developed in 2018, to determine whether a spatial pattern of land cover class change was evident. An initial assumption was made that forest cover change in these three cities would be minimal since the Great Recession. In fact, forest cover decreased by less than 1% in all three cities with the greatest decrease in Buffalo. Over the post-recession study period, increases in the developed land classes were evident in all three cities at the expense of grasses, tree cover, and other land classes. Some clustering of new development activities was noticed at a relatively small scale in San Diego, while some dispersion of new developed activities was noticed at a larger scale in Denver. Among other factors, changes in population, economics, and land use are factors that influence land cover change with specific impacts on forest cover, and therefore in the provision of urban forest benefits to the environment and society.