Effects of green space on walking: Does size, shape and density matter?

Abstract

The role of the built environment in improving public health through fostering physical activity has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. This study investigates relationships between walking activity and the configuration of green spaces in Greater London. Pedestrian activity for N = 54,910 walking trip stages is gathered through the London Travel Demand Survey (LTDS), with routes between origin and destination mapped onto the street network from the Integrated Transport Network of Ordnance Survey. Green spaces were extracted from UKMap and agglomerated to form London’s hundreds of parks. Regressions of pedestrian activity on park configuration, controlling for built environment metrics, revealed that catchments around smaller parks have more walking trips. Irregularity of park shape has the opposite effect. Park density, measured as number of parks inside a catchment, is insignificant in regression. Parks adjacent to retail areas were associated with pronounced increases in walking. The study contributes to landscape, urban management, environmental policy and urban planning and design literature. The evidence provides implications for performance-oriented policy and design decisions that configure a city’s green spaces to improve citizens’ public health through enhancing walkability.

The nature of cities and the Covid-19 pandemic

“…At the same time, personalized protection in parks, public spaces and while biking is necessary to reduce the risks of clusters developing when outside crowding replaces inside crowding [ 14 ]. The size of public green spaces in cities clearly influences this risk [ 15 ]. Planning standards for green space, which typically focus on pro rata provision (square meters pp) may need to be revisited to emphasis accessibility to large spaces.…”

Ecosystem Service Use and the Motivations for Use in Central Parks in Three European Cities

“…Consistent with the main ES uses presented in this study, Kaczynski, Potwarka and Saelens [43] also reported from Ontario, Canada and Campbell, Svendsen, Sonti and Johnson [30] from New York City, NY, USA, physical activities to be the predominant park use, but contrastingly mainly influenced by park facilities enabling the intended use, while the factor distance or proximity played a minor role for users in Ontario, but not in New York City. Furthermore, Zhang et al [81] reported proximity to retail areas having a positive effect on park visits for walking in a study in Greater London.…”

Circular Cities: What Are the Benefits of Circular Development?

“…The provision of green infrastructure can also encourage active lifestyles amongst the wider population [40]. Green corridors with integrated active transport networks reinforce walking and cycling in cities [41,42]. Active lifestyles reduce obesity, levels of stress and improve the mental health of city dwellers, helping to build long-term health resilience [43][44][45].…”