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Environmental Equity Is Child's Play: Mapping Public Provision Of Recreation Opportunities In Urban Neighbourhoods, Jason Gilliland, Martin Holmes, Jennifer Irwin, Patricia Tucker

Trish Tucker

This paper examines the spatial distribution of recreational opportunities for children and youth in a mid-sized Canadian city (London, Ontario), in relation to the socioeconomic status of neighbourhoods and estimated local need for publicly provided recreation spaces. Public recreation facilities (N = 537) throughout the city were identified, mapped and analysed in a geographic information system. To explore potential socio-environmental inequities, neighbourhoods (N = 22) were characterized by socioeconomic and environmental variables, an index of neighbourhood social distress, a neighbourhood play space needs index, and measures of the prevalence and density of recreational opportunities. The results of the spatial analysis …