Anthropology in the Park: A Behavioral Model for the Planning and Evaluation of Urban Open Spaces

Abstract

In recent years, urban planners have found that urban open spaces are not utilized simply because they are there. Indeed, Jane Jacobs pointed out seventeen years ago that "for every Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, or Rockefeller Plaza, or Washington Square in New York or their beloved equivalents in other cities, there are dozens of dispirited city vacuums called parks…little used… unloved" (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961, p. 81). Part of the problem can be found in the beginning stages of the park planning process. In the past, very little attention, if any, was given to user needs and perspectives of the user environment. Priority was given to aesthetic and economic variables and, as a result, we find that many of the areas planned as parks in urban environments are being grossly under-utilized.