Socioeconomic-Vegetation Relationships in Urban, Residential Land

This research investigates the relationship between socioeco- nomic status and remotely sensed vegetation intensity in residential land in the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area. Land-cover data derived from aerial photography and nor- malized difference vegetation index data (NDVI) derived from Landsat ETMimagery were integrated with U.S. Bureau of the Census tract-level data and analyzed using choropleth mapping and multivariate statistics. Association rule mining, a data mining technique, is used to explore nonlinear rela- tionships among variables. Results indicate that higher veg- etation intensity is associated with socioeconomic advantage in both sparsely populated, large lot suburban developments, as well as in older, urban neighborhoods. This pattern likely reflects residents' ability to pay for the cost of maintaining high vegetation intensity, suburban lawn ecosystem vegeta- tion in a semi-arid grassland environment. Additionally, residential choices may be limited by a home price structure that is closely related to the concentration of vegetation in the residential landscaping.