Opportunity or Orientation? Who Uses Urban Parks and Why

Abstract

There is growing recognition that interactions with nature provide many desirable human well-being outcomes, yet increasing urbanization is degrading the quality and quantity of nature experiences. Thus, it has become increasingly important to understand how and why urban dwellers interact with nature. Studies of urban green space use have largely focused on the availability and ease of access to green space, suggesting that greater opportunities to experience such space will lead to increased use. However, a growing literature emphasizes the potential for an individual's nature orientation to affect their interaction with green space. Here we measure the importance of both opportunity and orientation factors in explaining urban park use. An urban lifestyle survey was deployed across Brisbane, Australia in November 2012 to assess patterns of green space use. Participants (n = 1479) were asked to provide information on demographics, private yard use, park visitations in the past week, and their orientation toward nature. About 60% of those surveyed had visited a park in the past week, and while this park user population had significantly greater nearby park coverage (within a 250 m radius; p = 0.006), a much stronger determinant of visitation was their higher nature orientation (p<0.00001), suggesting that while both opportunity and orientation are important drivers for park visitation, nature orientation is the primary effect. Park users also spent significantly more time in their yards than non-park users (p<0.00001), suggesting that yard use does not necessarily compensate for lower park use. Park users with stronger nature orientation (i) spent more time in their yard, (ii) traveled further to green spaces, and (iii) made longer visits than park visitors with weaker nature orientation. Overall, our results suggest that measures to increase people's connection to nature could be more important than measures to increase urban green space availability if we want to encourage park visitation.

What is the role of trees and remnant vegetation in attracting people to urban parks?

“…Park characteristics are well known to influence park visitation (Ho et al 2005;Wende et al 2012;Jim and Shan 2013;Zanon et al 2013;Lin et al 2014;Pleson et al 2014), and we found that park size was an important predictor of the relative vegetation cover in visited parks. Furthermore, tree cover and remnant vegetation cover were more important factors in park selection at the local scale than the district or metropolitan park scale.…”

“…A range of social and environmental factors are known to influence park visitation behaviour; this includes gender, age, education and income, which all influence preferences for different types and sizes of parks, as well as the facilities within them (Ho et al 2005;Wende et al 2012;Jim and Shan 2013;Zanon et al 2013;Lin et al 2014;Pleson et al 2014). Research into these human-environment interactions provides important insights into how sustainable landscapes might be designed to deliver recreational ecosystem services (Wu 2013).…”

Who Cares? The Importance of Emotional Connections with Nature to Ensure Food Security and Wellbeing in Cities

“…Interacting with nature can result in a range of human benefits including physical health, mental health, psychological health, psychological wellbeing, life meaning, cognitive ability and social cohesion, and provide spaces for physical and social activities to take place [3,14,18,19,25,28,[50][51][52][53][54]. Shanahan et al [17] identify three main pathways of nature benefitting wellbeing: direct pathway to physical health (e.g., a tree reflecting light and thereby managing temperature extremes); indirect pathway to physical health (e.g., a tree providing more shade promoting and encouraging physical activity); and an indirect pathway to mental health (e.g., the experience of viewing nature having restorative impacts on the brain).…”

“…Currently more than half the human population is living in or close to cities [3,40] and in Australia this is closer to 89% [90]. In low-income countries approximately 28% of the total population lives in cities, however these countries currently have the fastest rates of urban population growth which is putting increasing pressure onto their food systems [43,85,91].…”

“…To belong implies experiencing relatedness and connections with people, society, and nature. But generally cities are comparatively nature-poor and with inhabitants living busy lives, there are fears that people are increasingly disconnected through an extinction of experience (first termed by Pyle [2]) from the natural world in both quality and quantity [3][4][5][6][7]. As David Attenborough argues, this "means that people are getting out of touch with the realities of the natural world, of which we are in fact a part" [5] (p. 1).…”