Whose park? Crowdsourcing citizen's urban green space preferences to inform needs-based management decisions

Elizabeth A Schrammeijer,Peter H Verburg,Boris T Van Zanten

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2021.103249

Abstract

• Photo uploads to social media are linked to specific uses and are not a good indicator of subjective values. • Landscape photo composition is not linked to preferences. • A dedicated mobile app provides useful insights into in situ location specific perception and preferences, especially with regard to quieter values of urban green space. • Combined with observations of use a dedicated app can help prioritise locations for improvement. Subjective values of urban green spaces are difficult to quantify and thus easily overlooked in planning processes. Accounting for such values is an important challenge in developing sustainable cities. Crowdsourcing methods, such as big data and smart phone applications, have emerged as promising methods to improve insights into subjective perceptions and preferences. However, we know little about how well these relatively new methods actually quantify subjective values. We assessed several of these new methods by comparing observations of use (n = 1009) to three crowdsourcing methods in one large park in Amsterdam, the Netherlands: a dedicated mobile app providing in situ stated preferences (n = 377), passive social media (n = 78) and a municipal reporting app (n = 187). We show that observed use and passive social media only captured user quantity and were not able to identify green space qualities that are important for mental health functions, such as how relaxing or safe a location is. The dedicated mobile app combined with observed use helped to identify priority locations for improvement. Our findings emphasize that if inadequate measures are used in smart city developments, subjective values and specific user groups will continue to be overlooked in planning processes.

Highlights

Green spaces are crucial to sustainable and resilient cities, providing social benefits essential to the health and well-being of urban residents (Andersson et al, 2019; Chen et al, 2019)
This paper aims to analyse how subjective qualities of urban green space can be quantified by crowdsourcing with big data and new tech nologies to inform socially sustainable planning in cities
While big data, derived from social media, are often consid ered a potential source of useful information on the behaviour of urban residents, we show that it is less useful in eliciting green space percep tion and preferences, rather indicating mainly visitor pressure

Summary

Introduction

Green spaces are crucial to sustainable and resilient cities, providing social benefits essential to the health and well-being of urban residents (Andersson et al, 2019; Chen et al, 2019). Recreation, improving mental health and providing a place to experience nature for city resi dents are just a few examples of the important contributions they pro vide (Keeler et al, 2019; van den Berg et al, 2010; van den Berg et al, 2015) For this reason, safe, inclusive and accessible green spaces are explicitly identified as a Sustainable Development Goal (Goal 11.7: United Nations, 2016). Most studies on health benefits of green spaces are focussed on associations between parks and physical activity (Bratman et al, 2019; Dzhambov et al, 2020; Konijnendijk van den Bosch et al, 2013) While this is a valid and important consideration from a public health perspective, it tends to overshadow other essential functions of urban green spaces. There is a persistent gap in knowledge on how to measure qualities of green spaces and whether they meet the needs of urban residents (Badiu et al, 2019; Meyer-Grandbastien et al, 2020)

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