As an important subset of the urban population and a major contributor to urban social wealth, the elderly play an important role in a city’s sustainable development. Based on data from the statistical yearbook and an empirical investigation, this paper evaluated the elderly suitability of 75 parks in China’s Shanghai Central District using a self-defined Python script tool based on ArcGIS. According to spatial differences in the elderly suitability of parks, we employed spatial interpolation to explore the reasons for variations in park services in different residential spaces in Shanghai Central District. The results revealed the following: (1) the elderly suitability of parks in Shanghai Central District decreases gradually from the inner ring to the outer ring; (2) the park accessibility in Shanghai Central District is generally low, and the park service space can be divided into five categories ranging from “low accessibility, super-low elderly suitability” to “high accessibility, high elderly suitability”; and (3) the advantages of regional function and location, the development of regional culture and tourism economy, and the implementation of regional elderly-care policies are factors promoting the improvement of the elderly suitability of regional park services. Finally, this paper provided scientific decision-making suggestions for Shanghai and other aging cities to optimize the elderly suitability of urban parks.

Urban parks are critical for sustainable urban development. They are of theoretical and practical significance for analyzing the visual landscape of recreational spaces from the perspective of the elderly. This analysis can be used for exploring new methods for optimizing recreational space layouts to improve the physical and mental health of the elderly in parks, thus realizing the sustainable development of urban society. Taking Ziyang Park in Shangrao Central District of Jiangxi Province, China, as an example, starting from the visual characteristics of the elderly, this study quantitatively calculated the landscape viewability, total view ratio, and water view ratio for the elderly in each recreational space using Python Scripting for ArcGIS. We briefly express the elderly suitability of the visual landscape for each recreational space through a weighted synthesis of the calculation results. Our findings show that, in Ziyang Park, the elderly suitability of the visual landscape for recreational spaces is not only low overall, but also gradually decreases from the interior to the exterior of this park. Moreover, this spatial distribution may be caused by the location of zoning, surface elevation, and road slopes, as well as the individual characteristics of each recreational space. Finally, we discuss the requirements of the elderly for some geographical factors, along with the feasibility of using ArcGIS 3-D analysis to optimize the layout of the park recreational space, with the aim of providing a new research perspective and an effective reference method for designing layouts of such spaces that are favorable for the elderly to better guarantee the sustainable development of urban society.

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