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During the rapid urbanization process, the unequal distribution of green spaces (GS) has become a prominent topic in academic discussions due to its implications for social justice. Nonetheless, the equity of GS availability among different types of residential neighborhoods remains unclear, posing a challenge to achieving environmental justice in urban greening practices. This study, taking Shenzhen as a case study, examines the equity of GS availability between urban villages (UV) and residential quarters (RQ), two common residential neighborhood types in Chinese cities. We initially categorized both inner-GS and outer-GS based on their location inside or outside the boundary of residential neighborhoods and assessed GS availability at various accessible distances. Subsequently, the Theil index was applied to evaluate the inequity of GS availability, encompassing both the inequities within and between UV and RQ. Our findings reveal that UV exhibited higher GS inequity than RQ across all accessible distances. Furthermore, within UV, GS inequity decreased as the accessible distance increased, while the opposite trend was observed for RQ. Notably, although significant inequities existed in inner-GS availability between UV and RQ, outer-GS played a crucial role in mitigating this imbalance. These results provide valuable insights into GS equity across different residential neighborhood types and offer recommendations for enhancing/balancing the equity of GS availability in Shenzhen. • The inequity of GS availability between UV and RQ in Shenzhen was estimated. • UV exhibited higher GS inequity than RQ across all accessible distances. • The inner-GS inequity between UV and RQ contributed 31.4% to the total inequity. • The imbalance of inner-GS between UV and RQ was mitigated by Outer-GS. • Outer-GS mitigated the inner-GS inequity of UV but aggravated that of RQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Heterogeneous effects of UGS availability and spatial configuration on LST were explored. • UGS availability is negatively associated with both daytime and nighttime LST. • The Gini coefficient of UGS distribution has a positive effect on solely daytime LST. • The impacts of UGS availability on LST decrease with increased LST quantiles. • The impacts of UGS spatial configuration increase with increased LST quantiles. The impacts of the availability and spatial configuration of urban green spaces (UGS) on their cooling effects can vary with background climate conditions. However, large-scale studies that assess the potential heterogeneous relationships of UGS availability and spatial configuration with urban thermal environment are still lacking. In this study, we investigated the impacts of UGS availability and spatial configuration on urban land surface temperature (LST) taking 306 cities in China as a case study covering a multi-biome-scale. We first calculated the availability of surrounding UGS for urban built-up pixels in each city using a distance-weighted approach, and its spatial configuration was quantified through the Gini coefficient. Then, we employed various regression models to explore how the impacts of UGS availability and the Gini coefficient on LST varies across different LST quantiles and between day- and nighttime. The results revealed that UGS availability was negatively associated with both daytime and nighttime LST, while the Gini coefficient showed a positive impact solely on daytime LST, indicating that an adequate and equally distributed UGS contributes to lower environmental temperatures during the daytime. Furthermore, the impact of UGS availability on LST decreased during both day- and nighttime with increased background LST quantiles. Whereas the impact of the Gini coefficient increased only with daytime LST quantile levels, with its effect remaining almost insignificant during the night. Our findings provide new insights into the impacts of UGS on urban thermal environment, offering significant implications for urban green infrastructure planning aiming at lowering the urban heat island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]