Who lives in greener neighborhoods? The distribution of street greenery and its association with residents' socioeconomic conditions in Hartford, Connecticut, USA

Street greenery plays an important role in enhancing the environmental quality of a city. Current urban environmental studies mainly focus on the distribution of desirable land uses (e.g., open spaces and parks). Few studies have been conducted on street greenery in residential areas, although it may provide a series of benefits to urban residents, such as energy saving, provision of shade, and aesthetic values. Google Street View (GSV) provides profile views of urban landscapes, and thus may be used for residential street greenery assessment. In this project, GSV was used in a case study to examine the relationships between the spatial distributions of residential street greenery and some socioeconomic variables in different block groups of Hartford, Connecticut, USA. The green view index was calculated based on the GSV images captured at different horizontal and vertical view angles to quantitatively represent how much greenery a pedestrian can see from ground level. Results showed that people with various social conditions have different amounts of street greenery in their living environments in Hartford. People with higher incomes tend to live in places with more street greenery. In summary, this study makes contribution to literature by providing insights into the living environments of urban residents in terms of street greenery, and it also generates valuable reference data for future urban greening programs. (C) 2015 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.