Who does not use urban green spaces and why? Insights from a comparative study of thirty-three European countries

Abstract

There is a large body of research on the benefits green spaces offer city dwellers and how people use urban green spaces (UGS). However, there is much less information on how many people do not use UGS, who these people are, and why they resign from going there. This paper focuses on understanding reasons that restrict the use of UGS and draws the socio-economic and demographic profile of UGS non-users. For this purpose, we surveyed N = 10,391 respondents from 33 European countries (statistically representative at the country level). Results show that about 10% of the respondents do not use UGS. However, the share of non-users differs between countries from 2% (Turkey) to 25% (United Kingdom). Results reveal statistically significant differences between those who do not use and those who use UGS across age, education level, and residential location, demonstrating the importance of considering the needs of different groups of people when designing, planning and managing UGS. Lack of time and interest, and long distance from where people live are key limiting factors. The dominant reasons for not using UGS enable us to group the countries using the hierarchical agglomerative clustering analysis. With this study, we contribute to the knowledge of personal barriers that prevent UGS use and, in particular, connect the different reasons for not using UGS with the socio-economic groups typically listed as deprived when it comes to UGS provision.