How should we design urban parks?

February 1, 2012

Most major cities have one or more large parks. As geographer Terence Young has explained, parks proliferated across modern cities to help stem the departure of middle-class and affluent residents in the wake of industrialization at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Parks were considered a panacea for social ills as varied as crime, illness, and poor mental health. In recent years, scientists have taken a fresh look at parks and their role in the quality of urban life.

Sedentary behavior

Social scientists Z. Davidson, Aline Simen-Kapeu, and Paul Veugelers studied the relationship between neighborhood attributes and physical activity. Using survey data collected in Alberta, Canada, elementary schools, the authors found that parks and sidewalks not only provide opportunities for exercise but also raise the self-efficacy, defined as the confidence to exercise, of elementary school children. Being surrounded by parks, the authors argue, increases childrens’ satisfaction with their neighborhood, which, in turn, makes them feel more comfortable with exercise.

Davidson and his coauthors’ findings have been further refined by a recent study that focused specifically on the relationship between public open spaces and children’s sedentary behavior. Psychologist Jenny Veitch and her colleagues used the Children Living in Active Neighborhoods data set, which included 291 families with children between the ages of five and six living in Melbourne, Australia. Parents reported the amount of time their children spent watching TV and playing video games. In addition, researchers visited the homes of participating families and took note of the open spaces in the vicinity of the family’s residence. The researchers found that the positive effect of outdoor spaces provided for children depends on specific architectural characteristics. Neighborhoods with parks that include a water feature were ranked as more satisfactory and were associated with children spending less time watching TV and playing video games than those without ponds or other water-based landscape elements. In contrast, walking paths were not related to lower sedentary behavior among children, even though cul-de-sacs seemed to encourage children to engage in more independent activities outside of the parental home.

Important differences

Social scientists Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Orit Stieglitz investigated the differences between parks in the Los Angeles area and those in the suburban San Fernando Valley. Using geographic information systems (GIS), surveys, and interviews, they found that Los Angeles residents have on average less green, open space available than San Fernando Valley inhabitants. Furthermore, suburban parks were better maintained, even though children in L.A. use their parks more heavily than do children in the San Fernando Valley. Louikaitou-Sideris and Stieglitz argued that children who live in cities use their neighborhood park as a backyard. In contrast, suburban children tend to use parks mainly on weekends for picnics with their families and are less satisfied with the public equipment than inner-city children.

Risks and costs

Despite their potential benefits, maintaining parks is costly. According to the City Park Facts Report published by the Trust for Public Land, New York spent $1,329,673,995, or $158 per resident, on its parks during the fiscal year 2009. While that price tag provided space that in 2009 was visited by 35 million people, it still suggests that we ought to carefully weigh both the problems and benefits of the public parks system.

For example, chemical engineer Julian D. Marshall and public health researchers Michael Brauer and Lawrence D. Frank warned that the dangers of vehicle emission should encourage us to think more carefully about how we promote parks. Marshall and his colleagues analyzed emission rates, ozone concentration, and walkability (community design that encourages walking, such as well-connected streets, proximal stores, or small city blocks) for 89 percent of all Vancouver postal codes. They concluded that while walkability may help residents to become more active, walking in high-density areas also increases exposure to traffic-related pollution. This problem was particularly acute in the low-income areas of Vancouver, which are amenable to traveling on foot, but which also have high vehicle emission rates.

Still, few researchers question that green spaces increase livability in cities. Researcher Christopher Walker even argued in a recent Urban Institute report that the positive effects of parks for city dwellers may extend beyond the benefits to public health. Walker suggested that, given their ability to encourage people to get together, parks increase neighborhood ties and generate the social capital that helps communities thrive.

Homepage photo by Flickr user ZeroOne.