There appears to be a positive correlation between green space and children’s development. It was observed that as green space, seen as NDVI or park space, increased, children’s EDI scores also increased. It could be seen that when NDVI values increased, correlating with more overall greenness or green space, children’s EDI scores increased in all 5 categories analyzed. Physical, social, language, communication, and total scores all increased with increasing access to green space. It was also observed that there was a clear division between West and East Vancouver. West Vancouver typically had more green space and higher EDI scores. 

Another observation was that East Vancouver had less green space than West Vancouver, but had more elementary schools. Given the findings that green space positively influences children’s development, Vancouver should aim to improve and increase green space in the East side. Especially if the East side has more elementary schools, which means more children are in these environments for long periods of time everyday. Since green space improves children’s development, areas with lots of elementary schools should also contain lots of green space to help improve the children’s development as children will inevitably spend a lot of time in these areas.

Based on the analysis and results presented here, I would accept the hypothesis that students who have greater access to green space will have improved development, specifically they will have higher Early Development Instrument (EDI) scores.

When planning and developing urban areas, proximity to green space and overall greenness of a city must be considered. Green space needs to be accessible and evenly distributed to help improve children’s early development. Green space should not be sparsely distributed either. Green space has been shown to improve children’s development, so it should be common in an urban environment to see greenery, instead of of having to walk 15 or 30 minutes to a park. Green space should be more accessible so it is easier to access more frequently. Especially in densely populated urban areas as green space seems to decreases with an increase in urban density. This trend was observed in Vancouver, and can be seen in the NDVI map. Downtown Vancouver had much lower NDVI values than the rest of the city, indicating downtown Vancouver has less greenery or green space than the rest of the city. Since green space has been shown to benefit development, Vancouver should aim to increase the overall greenness of downtown, especially since it does does have higher population density, so more people are impacted by the downtown environment. NDVI is a great way to asses where in a city green space may be lacking, and I would suggest that the City of Vancouver look at areas with lower NDVI values to identify areas where more green space is needed. The City of Vancouver should try and make an effort to increase green space in those areas lacking green space, like downtown Vancouver. 

Since this analysis focused on looking inside DA’s there were some limitations, like measuring actual proximity to green space. A more precise and comprehensive study should be conducted in the future for more accurate results. This study didn’t look at occupation or income, so some of the results could have been explained by affluence. A future study could include affluence in their analysis to see if there is any bias caused by socioeconomic factors.