Modeling spatial accessibility to parks: a national study
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TLDR
The PWD to parks provides a consistent platform for evaluating spatial equity of park access and linking with population health outcomes and could be an informative evaluation tool for health professionals and policy makers.Abstract:
Parks provide ideal open spaces for leisure-time physical activity and important venues to promote physical activity. The spatial configuration of parks, the number of parks and their spatial distribution across neighborhood areas or local regions, represents the basic park access potential for their residential populations. A new measure of spatial access to parks, population-weighted distance (PWD) to parks, combines the advantages of current park access approaches and incorporates the information processing theory and probability access surface model to more accurately quantify residential population's potential spatial access to parks. The PWD was constructed at the basic level of US census geography - blocks - using US park and population data. This new measure of population park accessibility was aggregated to census tract, county, state and national levels. On average, US residential populations are expected to travel 6.7 miles to access their local neighborhood parks. There are significant differences in the PWD to local parks among states. The District of Columbia and Connecticut have the best access to local neighborhood parks with PWD of 0.6 miles and 1.8 miles, respectively. Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming have the largest PWDs of 62.0, 37.4, and 32.8 miles, respectively. Rural states in the western and Midwestern US have lower neighborhood park access, while urban states have relatively higher park access. The PWD to parks provides a consistent platform for evaluating spatial equity of park access and linking with population health outcomes. It could be an informative evaluation tool for health professionals and policy makers. This new method could be applied to quantify geographic accessibility of other types of services or destinations, such as food, alcohol, and tobacco outlets.read more
Citations
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Using GIS analysis to assess urban green space in terms of accessibility: case study in Kutahya
TL;DR: In this article, the distribution and amount of green space in Kutahya is examined as well as the distribution of green areas on a neighbourhood scale, and the even distribution of the distance and accessibility of green area throughout the city are closely related to the provision of recreational needs.
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Public open space, physical activity, urban design and public health: Concepts, methods and research agenda
Mohammad Javad Koohsari,Mohammad Javad Koohsari,Suzanne Mavoa,Karen Villanueva,Karen Villanueva,Takemi Sugiyama,Takemi Sugiyama,Hannah Badland,Andrew T. Kaczynski,Neville Owen,Billie Giles-Corti +10 more
TL;DR: Key conceptual and methodological issues that may contribute to inconsistencies in research examining relations between public open space and physical activity are identified.
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Spatial Disparities in the Distribution of Parks and Green Spaces in the USA
TL;DR: Poverty levels were negatively associated with distances to parks and percentages of green spaces in urban/suburban areas while positively associated in rural areas, and Percentages of blacks and Hispanics were in general negatively linked to distances to Parks and green space coverage along the urban–rural spectrum.
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When green is White: The cultural politics of race, nature and social exclusion in a Los Angeles urban national park
TL;DR: Using the cultural politics framework, this article found that people of color feel "out of place" and "unwelcome" in Los Angeles parks, and they identified the predominantly White clientele of parks; the ethno-racial profile of park-adjacent neighborhoods; a lack of Spanish-language signs; fears of persecution; and direct experiences of discrimination as exclusionary factors.
Journal ArticleDOI
An assessment of urban park access in Shanghai – Implications for the social equity in urban China
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined whether and to what extent the distribution of urban park services is equitable for marginalised population in China and found that vulnerable groups are favored over more affluent citizens.
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