Analyzing urban parks’ spatial integration in Budapest to understand changes in visitation patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Globally, dramatic changes in park visitation have accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, cities have experienced an overall increase in park visitation after strict lockdowns imposed in the pandemic’s first wave have been removed. However, previous research conducted in Hungary has demonstrated that park visitation varied across parks with different sizes and locations in the city. We hypothesized that the degree of the park’s integration into the urban fabric significantly affected changes in visitation. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a space syntax analysis. Findings show that community parks with an area of 10.01–50.00 hectares and a mean spatial integration of 83.37 experienced the highest increase in the number of visitors (based on mobile devices’ GNSS data). Surprisingly, large metropolitan parks providing highly complex ecosystem services lost many visitors during the pandemic, which might be due to their low spatial integration.