Abstract
Urban green areas, such as parks, are becoming increasingly important in densifying cities. Urban parks encourage physical and social activity, recreation and relaxation, and thus eventually promote people’s well-being. The aim of the current study is to examine which urban park attributes influence the preferences of park users, in order to offer recommendations regarding how urban parks of quality can be designed. To elicit the preferences of park visitors we designed an online stated-choice experiment. Seven park attributes, in particular the number and composition of trees and the presence of benches, side paths, a playground, litter, and flowers, were manipulated in a virtual park. In an online stated-choice task, videos of these park alternatives were presented and the preferences of 697 participants were measured. It is found that especially the number of trees and the presence of flowerbeds, particularly with a diversity of flowers, influenced participants’ preferences. The presence of many benches and a playground were valued as well, but to a lesser extent. The presence of litter was found to be less troublesome than expected. Alternatives with all trees placed in one cluster were disliked. Moreover, significant standard deviations were found for the presence of side paths, a playground, and the absence of litter, which indicates that preference heterogeneity for these attributes exist. In a latent class analysis, two groups were identified, namely a Nature-loving group, who mainly valued the trees and the flowers, and an Amenity-appreciating group, who valued almost all attributes. It can be concluded that natural elements and a variety of flower species are important in an urban park, while facilities are evaluated differently by different groups of people. These findings may support park designers and policymakers in decision-making. Moreover, it illustrates the usefulness of creating a virtual park in environmental preference research.
Highlights
The world population keeps expanding and this growth is mainly centralized in urban areas
An online stated-choice task was designed in which preferences regarding park attributes were measured
Average Influence of Elements on Preferences. Both the multinomial logit (MNL) and multinomial logit (ML) model show that the largest parameter is related to the constant and negative
Summary
The world population keeps expanding and this growth is mainly centralized in urban areas. It is expected that the percentage of the population living in urban areas will increase from 55 percent in 2018 to 68 percent in 2050 [1]. Urbanization poses challenges on the living environment of citizens and on their well-being. It can lead, among others, to crowding, crime, traffic problems, and poor housing conditions [2,3], which, in turn, can negatively influence people’s mental and physical health [4,5,6]. Living and working in an environment that allows for stress recovery is increasingly important Health Organization has declared stress as the health epidemic of the 21st century [7].
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