Community Planning + Visualization Lab

About this Research Stream

Parks and green infrastructure are among a city’s most important public health assets, yet who can reach them, what people see along the way, and how these spaces make people feel are rarely measured together. This research stream brings those questions into one frame by linking views from orbit to experiences at street level. Through Project GrEEEn, funded by NASA’s Equity and Environmental Justice program, we combine Earth science data with community surveys and focus groups to assess greenspace equity, exposure, and experience in Camden and Jersey City. We look at whether residents can walk to a park, how much greenery they see on the sidewalks that lead there, and the quality of the spaces they find. The EMoGI Project extends this work to emotion, mapping how residents of disadvantaged urban neighborhoods perceive and feel about the green infrastructure around them. A companion study examines how park quality and proximity together shape the health and social benefits people gain from park visits. Together, these projects pair geospatial analysis with lived experience to give planners, municipalities, and community partners evidence for designing parks and green networks that are not only greener but fairer, more welcoming, and better for people’s well-being.