Community Perception on Public Open Space and Quality of Life in Medan, Indonesia

Public Open Spaces in North Sumatra Province

“…The study for neighborhood open space in Singapore, Delhi, and Kuala Lumpur that held by Karuppannan and Sivarn (2013) showed that the utilization of POS does not directly relate to its quality. The similar facts found in POS of Medan, North Sumatra, either in the urban-scale (Nasution and Zahrah, 2014) and neighborhood scale POS (Nasution and Zahrah, 2014).…”

“…The people utilized POS frequently, mainly 1-3 times a week, and stayed there for 1-2 hours. The facts were similar with capital city Medan (Nasution and Zahrah, 2014). However, not like Medan, the utilization of the POS was intensive until night.…”

“…Thus, the place seemed like an 'alienated island'. However, the POS were not so hard to be reached due to the not so busy traffic, at least if it compared with Medan (Nasution and Zahrah, 2014). With these conditions, all aspects of accessibility were generally perceived at a fine level (the satisfaction level more than 3, though the satisfaction level did not reach 4.…”

“…Moreover, people used it frequently (Jacobs, 2008) and involved a various social background of citizens (Whyte, 1980). There are some aspects relate to the quality of POS, such as accessibility, facility, function/activity, management, and climate comfort (PPS, 2000;Nasution and Zahrah, 2014). The good quality of POS will drive people to use it more intensively (Gehl, 1996;Whyte, 1980;Sakip et al, 2014).…”

“…Many scholars have proven the benefits of the activities, such as improving social cohesion, as well as physical and psychological health. Even, the unwell-planned public open space still gives a positive contribution to people quality of life (Nasution and Zahrah, 2014). The study about how people use POS relates to the quality of the POS (Karuppannan dan Asivan, 2013;Zakariya et al, 2014;Ngesan dan Zubir, 2015;Malek et al, 2015).…”